"And them that'll wear that flannel petticoat will feel better for it, won't they?" "That they will, _I_ know." "But suppose everybody in the world was as well off as you and me, Mattie--you with your good father, and--" "Well, my father ain't none so good, just. He swears sometimes." "He's good to you, though, ain't he?" "I don't know that either, mother: he spoils me," answered Mattie, who seemed to be in a more than usually contradictory humor this morning. "Supposing, though, that everybody had a father that spoiled them, you wouldn't have any such clothes to make, you know." "But they wouldn't want them." "And you would be forced to go back to your dolls as have no father or mother and come across the sea in boxes." "I see, I see, mother. Well, I suppose I must allow that it is good of God to give us a share in making people comfortable. You see he could do it himself, only he likes to give us a share. That's it, ain't, it mother?" "That's what I mean, Mattie." "Well, but you'll allow it does seem rather hard that I should have this to do now, and there's Poppie hasn't either the clothes to wear or to make." "Can't you do something for Poppie, then?" "Well, I'll think about it, and see what I can do." Here Mattie laid aside her work, crept on all fours to the door, and peeped over into the passage below. "Well, Poppie," she began, in the intellectually condescending tone which most grown people use to children, irritating some of them by it considerably,--"Well, Poppie, and how do _you_ do?" Poppie heard the voice, and looked all round, but not seeing where it came from, turned and scudded away under the arch. Though Mattie knew Poppie, Poppie did not know Mattie, did not know her voice at least. It was not that Poppie was frightened exactly--she hardly ever was frightened at anything, not even at a policeman, but she was given to scudding; and when anything happened she did not precisely know what to do with, she scudded: at least if there was no open drain or damaged hoarding at hand. But she did not run far this time. As soon as she got under the shelter of the arch, she turned behind a sort of buttress that leaned against the bookseller's house, and peeped back toward the court. At that moment Lucy came out of the house. She came down the passage, and as Mattie was still leaning over the door, or the threshold, rather, of the workshop, she saw her, and stopped. Thereupon Poppie came out of her "coign of vantage," and slowly approached, just like a bird or a tame rabbit--only she was not by any means so tame as the latter. "Are you getting on with that petticoat, Mattie?" said Lucy. "Yes, miss, I am. Only not being used to anything but boys' clothes, I am afraid you won't like the tailor's stitch, miss." "Never mind that. It will be a curiosity, that's all. But what do you think, Mattie? The kind lady who gives us this work to do for the poor people, has invited all of us to go and spend a day with her."