"But you can't say, mother, that God isn't better to some people than to other people. He's surely gooder to you and me than he is to Poppie." "Who's Poppie?" asked Mr. Spelt, sending out a flag of negotiation. "Well, there she is--down in the gutter, I suppose, as usual," answered Mattie, without lifting her eyes. The tailor peeped out of his house-front, and saw a barefooted child in the court below. What she was like I shall take a better opportunity of informing my reader. For at this moment the sound of strong nails tapping sharply reached the ear of Mr. Spelt and his friend. The sound came from a window just over the archway, hence at right angles to Mr. Spelt's workshop. It was very dingy with dust and smoke, allowing only the outline of a man's figure to be seen from the court. This much Poppie saw, and taking the tapping to be intended for her, fled from the court on soundless feet. But Mattie rose at once from her corner, and, laying aside cuttings and doll, stuck her needle and thread carefully in the bosom of her frock, saying: "That's my father a-wanting of me. I wonder what he wants now. I'm sure I don't know how he would get on without _me_. And that _is_ a comfort. Poor man! he misses my mother more than I do, I believe. He's always after me. Well, I'll see you again in the afternoon if I can. And, if not, you may expect me about the same hour to-morrow." While she thus spoke she was let down from the not very airy hight of the workshop on to the firm pavement below; the tailor stretching his arms with her from above, like a bird of prey with a lamb in his talons. The last words she spoke from the ground, her head thrown back between her shoulders that she might look the tailor in the face, who was stooping over her like an angel from a cloud in the family Bible. "Very well, Mattie," returned Mr. Spelt; "you know your own corner well enough by this time, I should think."