Mrs. Flower was working with a will, putting her whole soul into the iron. The apartment was chiefly in shadow, the only light being that from one tallow dip, twelve to the pound. The candle was on the table, being necessary for the woman's work, and its rays did not reach Little Prue, who sat in the low hollow-seated chair by the bed. Mrs. Flower enlivened her toil by singing, or rather humming with bated breath, a most lugubrious air for which she was famous in her maiden days, but then it used to be given forth with more spirit than she put into it now. Occasionally she turned to her child, who was sitting quite still with her eyes closed. There was a faint sickly smell of scorching in the room, proceeding from a wisp of carpet on the floor before the fire, upon which Mrs. Flower tested her hot irons. It had served this purpose so long that it was scorched almost to tinder. Presently the woman broke off in her melancholy singing, and called softly: "Prue!" No answer coming, she called again, "Prue!" "Yes, mother," said the child, opening her eyes. Her voice was weak, as might have been expected from a child with a face so pale and limbs so thin. "I thought you were asleep, Prue." "So I was, mother. Why didn't you let me be?" "Dreaming of things?" "Oh, of sech things, mother! I was 'aving a feast of sheep's trotters." Mrs. Flower sighed. "There was a 'ole pile of 'em, and the 'ot pie man was giving pies away. I was just reaching out my 'and for one." "Never mind, never mind," said Mrs. Flower, rather fretfully. "You talk as if I could get blood out of a stone." "Do I, mother? I didn't know. I _am_ 'ungry!" "What's the use of worriting? Didn't I promise you should have some supper? I'm going to ask Mrs. Fry to pay me for the washing when I take it home. I do hope she won't say there's anything missing. She always does; and when I ask her to look over the things again, she sends word she can't till the morning. That's how she puts me off time after time; but I'll be extra particular to-night. Three dozen at one and nine--that's five and three. She don't often give out so much; that's luck for us, Prue." "I say, mother?" "Well?" "D'yer think father'll come 'ome? I 'ope he won't." "He won't come home while he's got a copper in his pocket, that you may depend on. Go to sleep again, child, till I've finished." But Little Prue, now wide awake, made no attempt to obey. Rising to her feet, she stealthily drew one of the large wooden chairs to the mantelshelf, and, mounting, craned her neck. The shelf was high, and Prue was a very small child. It was only by tiptoeing, and running the danger of tumbling into the fire, that she ascertained what she wished to know. Stepping down like a cat, she crept to her mother's side. "There's a penny on the mantelpiece, mother."