ld, seated on
his shop floor, and closely hugging a dog in her arms. Her face looked
small to him; it was pale, as if she had been crying quietly, and though
he could not see them, a large tear stood on each of her cheeks.

"What little girl are you?" he asked, almost timidly.

"Rey called me Dolly," answered the child.

"Haven't you any other name?" inquired old Oliver

"Nosing else but Poppet," she said; "rey call me Dolly sometimes, and
Poppet sometimes. Ris is my little dog, Beppo."

She introduced the dog by pushing its nose into his hand, and Beppo
complacently wagged his tail and licked the old man's withered fingers.

"What brings you here in my shop, my little woman?" asked Oliver.

"Mammy brought me," she said, with a stifled sob; "she told me run in
rere, Dolly, and stay till mammy comes back, and be a good girl always.
Am I a good girl?"

"Yes, yes," he answered, soothingly; "you're a very good little girl, I'm
sure; and mother 'ill come back soon, very soon. Let us go to the door,
and look for her."

He took her little hand in his own; such a little hand it felt, that he
could not help tightening his fingers fondly over it; and then they stood
for a few minutes on the door-sill, while old Oliver looked anxiously up
and down the alley. At the greengrocer's next door there flared a bright
jet of gas, and the light shone well into the deepening darkness. But
there was no woman in sight, and the only person about was a ragged boy,
barefoot and bareheaded with no clothing but a torn pair of trousers,
very jagged about the ankles, and a jacket through which his thin
shoulders displayed themselves. He was lolling in the lowest window-sill
of the house opposite, and watched Oliver and the little girl looking
about them with sundry signs of interest and amusement.

"She ain't nowhere in sight," he called across to them after a while,
"nor won't be, neither, I'll bet you. You're looking out for the little
un's mother, ain't you, old master?"

"Yes," answered Oliver; "do you know anything about her, my boy?"

"Nothink," he said, with a laugh; "only she looked as if she were up to
some move, and as I'd nothink particular on hand, I just followed her.
She was somethink like my mother, as is dead, not fat or rosy, you know,
with a bit of a bruise about her eye, as if somebody had been fighting
with her. I thought there'd be a lark when she left the little 'un in
your shop, so I just stopped to see. She bolte