"My child, I'll teach her for nothing," said the dancing-master, shutting up the bag. He was as good-natured a dancing-master as ever danced to the Insolvent Court, and he kept his word. The sister was so apt a pupil, and the dancing-master had such abundant time to give her, that wonderful progress was made. Indeed, the dancing-master was so proud of it, and so wishful to show it before he left, to a few select friends among the collegians (the debtors in the prison were called "collegians"), that at six o'clock on a certain fine morning, an exhibition was held in the yard--the college-rooms being of too small size for the purpose--in which so much ground was covered, and the steps were so well executed, that the dancing-master, having to play his fiddle besides, was thoroughly tired out. The success of this beginning, which led to the dancing-master's continuing his teaching after his release, led the poor child to try again. She watched and waited months for a seamstress. In the fullness of time a milliner came in, sent there like all the rest for a debt which she could not pay; and to her she went to ask a favor for herself. "I beg your pardon, ma'am," she said, looking timidly round the door of the milliner, whom she found in tears and in bed: "but I was born here." Everybody seemed to hear of her as soon as they arrived; for the milliner sat up in bed, drying her eyes, and said, just as the dancing-master had said: "Oh! _you_ are the child, are you?" "Yes, ma'am." "I am sorry I haven't got anything for you," said the milliner, shaking her head. "It's not that, ma'am. If you please, I want to learn needlework." "Why should you do that," returned the milliner, "with me before you? It has not done me much good." "Nothing--whatever it is--seems to have done anybody much good who comes here," she returned in her simple way; "but I want to learn, just the same." "I am afraid you are so weak, you see," the milliner objected. "I don't think I am weak, ma'am." "And you are so very, very little, you see," the milliner objected. "Yes, I am afraid I am very little indeed," returned the Child of the Marshalsea; and so began to sob over that unfortunate smallness of hers, which came so often in her way. The milliner--who was not unkind or hardhearted, only badly in debt--was touched, took her in hand with good-will, found her the most patient and earnest of pupils, and made her a good workwoman.