her frock, she followed the funeral at a
distance, and with difficulty, through the busy streets. The brief
burial service was ended before they reached the cemetery, but Meg was
in time to show Robin the plate upon the coffin before the grave-digger
shovelled down great spadefuls of earth upon it. They stood watching,
with sad but childish curiosity, till all was finished; and then Meg,
with a heavy and troubled heart, took them home again to their lonely
attic in Angel Court.

CHAPTER III

Little Meg's Cleaning Day

For a few days Meg kept up closely in her solitary attic, playing with
Robin and tending baby; only leaving them for a few necessary minutes,
to run to the nearest shop for bread or oatmeal. Two or three of the
neighbours took the trouble to climb the ladder, and try the latch of
the door, but they always found it locked; and if Meg answered at all,
she did so only with the door between them, saying she was getting on
very well, and she expected father home to-day or to-morrow. When she
went in and out on her errands, Mr Grigg, a gruff, surly man, who kept
everybody about him in terror, did not break his promise to her mother,
that he would let no one meddle with her; and very quickly the brief
interest of Angel Court in the three motherless children of the absent
sailor died away into complete indifference, unmingled with curiosity:
for everybody knew the full extent of their neighbours' possessions;
and the poor furniture of Meg's room, where the box lay well hidden and
unsuspected under the bedstead, excited no covetous desires. The
tenant of the back attic, a girl whom Meg herself had seen no oftener
than once or twice, was away on a visit of six weeks, having been
committed to a House of Correction for being drunk and disorderly in
the streets; so that by the close of the week in which the sailor's
wife died no foot ascended or descended the ladder, except that of
little Meg.

There were two things Meg set her heart upon doing before father came
home: to teach Robin his letters, and baby to walk alone. Robin was a
quick, bright boy, and was soon filled with the desire to surprise his
father by his new accomplishment; and Meg and he laboured diligently
together over the Testament, which had been given to her at a night
school, where she had herself learned to read a little. But with the
baby it was quite another thing. There were babies in the court, not
to be compared with Meg's bab