Yet what could a little girl of ten years old do towards getting such a sum as that together? Just nothing! Why, if the sum was shillings instead of pounds, she would still find it utterly beyond her power and out of her grasp! She thought and she thought, but thinking did not help matters! She lay awake at night puzzling her little brain, but that did no good, and Nannie’s face grew a good deal paler, and set her mother wondering if the house was unhealthy, or thinking that perhaps the air from the river was damp and injurious. It was about this time that Yum-Yum, the pug which had been given to Nannie by one of her mother’s friends two years before, suddenly became the person of the most importance in the household at Putney; for behold one fine morning when Nannie came down to breakfast, Yum-Yum presented her with three babies, three dear wee pugs, which sent Nannie into ecstasies and made her forget for a few days all about Rosalind’s unsatisfied longings, and her craving after higher things than at present were attainable to her. "You think they’re real beauties, don’t you, Father?" said Nannie anxiously. "Yes, they are great beauties," said Mr. Mackenzie, holding one little snub-nosed pug up and examining it closely. "And what should you think that they are worth, Father?" Nannie asked. "Worth? Oh! that would depend a good deal on how they turn out. Their pedigree is a very fair one; and at the end of six weeks or two months they might be worth three or four guineas apiece--more, for that matter." Nannie fairly gasped, and she clutched hold of her father’s arm. "Oh! daddy dear," she exclaimed, "do you really, really think I might be able to get _any_ thing like that for them?" "Oh! yes, I think so," he answered, smiling at her earnestness. "But, Nannie, why do you want this money so much? Have you set your mind on a watch and chain?" "Oh! no, dear daddy," she answered eagerly, "it’s not for myself at all; it’s poor Rosalind I’m thinking of"--and forthwith she poured into her father’s surprised but sympathetic ear all the story of Rosalind’s artistic longings, her craving for better art-lessons, for all the good things that may be had for the sum of twenty pounds. Long before the story came to an end Mr. Mackenzie had drawn his little daughter very closely to him, and I fancy he was thinking, when she came to the end of it, more of the goodness of his Nannie’s heart than of the greatness of Rosalind’s future. "My Nannie," he said tenderly, "my generous, kind-hearted little woman! Rosalind ought to love you dearly for----"