"No--a little shop for bones and bottles and such things; and we has a party in the back parler twice a week, and something nice and hot for supper." "A school--on your own hook?" said Mattie, quickly. "Oh! how sharp we gets as we grows up!--but you allus was as sharp as any needle, and I was only saying to Simes but yesterday, if I could just drop on little Mattie, she'd be the werry gal to do us credit--she would." "I've been shifting for myself these last two years and odd, and I got on tidy till the frost set in, and now it's--_all up_!" "Ah!--all up--precisely so." Mrs. Watts did not detect the tragic element in Mattie's peroration; she had sallied forth in search of her, and had found her in the streets ragged and penniless and hungry. It was worth while to speculate in Mattie now--to show her some degree of kindness--to lure her back to the old haunts, and something worse than the old life. She began her temptations, and Mattie listened and trembled--the night was cold, and she had not tasted food that day. Mrs. Watts kept her hand upon the girl, and expatiated upon the advantages she had to offer now--even attempted to draw Mattie along with her. "Wait a bit--don't be in a hurry," said Mattie; "I'll come presently p'raps--not just now." "Oh! I'm not so sweet on you," said Mrs. Watts, aggrieved; "come if you like--stop away if you like--it's all one to me. I'll go about my rump-steaks for supper, and you can stay here and starve, if you prefer it." This dialogue occurred only a short distance from Mr. Wesden's shop, when Mr. Wesden was putting up the shutters in his own quiet way, with very little noise, his boy having left him at a moment's notice. Mrs. Wesden, who had her fears for his back--Mr. W. had had a sensitive back for years--was dragging the shutters out from under the shop-board--thin slips of wood, that required not any degree of strength to manage. There were six shutters--at the third Mr. Wesden said-- "There's Mattie." "Ah! poor girl!" At the fifth he added-- "With an old woman that I don't like the style of very much." Mrs. Wesden went to the door, and looked down the street at the tempter and the tempted--Mattie was under the lamp, and the face was a troubled one, on which the gas jet flickered. When the sixth shutter was up, and the iron band that secured them all firmly screwed into the door-post, the quiet couple stood side by side and watched the conflict to its abrupt conclusion. Both guessed what the subject had been--there was something of the night-bird and the gaol-bird about Mrs. Watts, that was easy of detection. Mrs. Wesden touched her husband's arm. "Danger, John." "Ah!" "And that girl has been a-going on so quietly for years, and getting her own living, and she without a father and a mother to care for her--not like our Harriet." "No." "And the way she brought back the money for that brooch." "Yes--that was funny." "I don't see the fun of it, John." "That was good of her."