to that extravagant gesturing? Nan walked more slowly
now, and took breath; while the woman, whoever she was, evidently was
coming along at a swinging pace.

No; that was no dramatic gesture. It was too monotonous. It looked
more as if she were sowing--to imperceptible furrows. Nan's eyes were
very long-sighted, but this thing puzzled her altogether. She now
certainly looked like a farmer's man scattering seed-corn.

Singing Sal saw and recognised her young-lady friend at some distance,
and seemed to moderate her gestures, though these did not quite cease.
When she came up, Nan said to her,

'What are you doing?'

'Well, Miss,' she said, with a bright smile--her face was quite red
with the cold air, and her hair not so smooth as she generally kept
it--'my arm does ache, to tell the truth. And my barley's nearly done.
I have tried to scatter it wide, so as the finches and larks may have a
chance, even when the jackdaws and rooks are at it.'

'Are you scattering food for the birds, then?'

'They're starved out in this weather, Miss; and then the boys come out
wi' their guns; and the dicky-laggers are after them too----'

'The what?'

'The bird-catchers, Miss. If I was a farmer now, I'd take a horsewhip,
I would, and I'd send those gentry double quick back to Whitechapel.
And the gentle-folks, Miss, it isn't right of them to encourage the
trapping of larks when there's plenty of other food to be got. Well,
my three-penn'orth o' barley that I bought in Newhaven is near done
now.'

She looked into the little wallet that she had twisted round in front
of her.

'Oh, if you don't mind,' said Nan, eagerly, 'I will give you a
shilling--or two or three shillings--to get some more.'

'You could do better than that, Miss,' said Sal. 'Maybe you know some
one that lives in Lewes Crescent?'

'Yes, I do.'

'Well, ye see, Miss, there's such a lot o' birds as won't eat grain at
all; and if you was to get the key of the garden in Lewes Crescent, and
get a man to sweep the snow off a bit of the grass, and your friends
might throw down some mutton bones and scraps from the kitchen, and the
birds from far and near would find it out--being easily seen, as it
might be. Half the thrushes and blackbirds along this countryside 'll
be dead before this snow gives out.'

'Oh, I will go back at once and do that,' said Nan, readily.

'Look how they've been running about all the morning,' said this
fresh-coloured, dark-eyed