It was a slack afternoon with the cobbler, as he had taken home his last batch of work, and had not much in hand until fresh orders arrived. So he sat holding the child’s hand while she poured into his ears her wonderful tale, and displayed before his astonished eyes her wonderful shining coin. Mrs. Gregg came up to look and admire and wonder, and eager was the discussion which followed. “No, I shan’t spend it--I shall keep it,” said Allumette. “The lady said it was a sort of keepsake. I shall keep it and look at it sometimes; only I don’t know where it will be safe.” “I’ll make you a little leather bag for it, ducky,” said the old man, “and then I’ll make a little hole in the crown itself, if you like, and you can hang it round your neck, bag and all. It’ll be safest so, as you might lose it out of the bag if ’twasn’t bored through itself; but we’ll make it all safe for you!” Allumette was delighted. She watched the whole process with eager interest, and when the coin was wrapped in its covering and hung about her neck, her little face beamed all over with joy. “It feels as if it would bring me good luck!” she cried, with dancing eyes. “Perhaps it will for sure!” said the old couple fondly. A happy child was Allumette that night when she fell asleep, though she little dreamt of the golden hours that were in store for her. [Illustration: Decorative image] CHAPTER II. IN THE STUDIO. “It is provoking!” exclaimed Cora Clayton. “What is the matter now?” asked bright-faced Madge, who had strolled into her sister’s studio from the garden, her hands full of snowdrops and aconites from the shrubbery borders. “Why, little Muriel Ellerton has just sickened with measles, and you know I was depending upon her as a model for my Academy picture. It is so difficult to get a really picturesque-looking child; and Muriel would have done beautifully. I really haven’t any time to lose; and here I am at a perfect deadlock!” “What a pity!” said Madge, who took great interest in her talented sister’s drawing. Cora Clayton had achieved a rather considerable success for an amateur, and for two years past had exhibited a small picture in the Royal Academy. During the winter months just past she had been away from home with her brother’s delicate wife, who had been ordered to the south of France, so that she had not been able to do much painting. Now that she was home again she was eager to get forward, and it was provoking to be disappointed of her model just upon the very morning when she had reckoned to start work. “Is there no other child who would do?” asked a voice from the couch beside the fire. Young Mrs. Clayton, the barrister’s delicate wife, had established herself in Cora’s studio, as she was fond of doing. The sisters were greatly attached to their brother’s wife, and the family lived happily together in perfect harmony in their old-fashioned semi-country house at Hampstead.