he reply; "I never bought any article there, and I
never mean to. Well, you may run round with Bertha for a few minutes."

"Thank you," Joy said. "I hope you'll let Bet come to tea again; and
if you'd like to come too, I am sure Uncle Bobo wouldn't mind."

"I don't spend _my_ time gadding about taking tea with folks. I leave
that to drones, who've got nothing better to do. Did you say, child,
you lived with Boyd, at the instrument shop?"

"Yes, ma'am; he's my uncle."

Mrs. Skinner turned away, and then the door was shut with a sharp bang,
and the two girls were left outside.

"I don't think I'll come in, Bet," little Miss Joy said; "for your
grandmother does not like me--she looks so cross."

"She always looks like that," Bertha said; and then she added, "Every
one but you is cross to me; you are always kind. Oh, I do love you!"

Then Bet's cheeks, after making this declaration, were suffused with
blushes, which made her poor sallow face a dark purplish-red.

"Do come in a moment--_do_," she said.

The two girls went in at the back door, and along a narrow stone
passage.

The door on the right was open, and Bet said, in a low whisper--

"There's Uncle Joe's room. There's where he sits at night, and I hear
people coming in, 'cause my window is one in the lean-to."

Uncle Joe's proceedings had not much interest for Joy, and she just
looked round the room standing on the threshold, and said--

"What a big table for such a wee little room, covered with green cloth,
and what funny little boxes! They are like the big hour-glass in Uncle
Bobo's glass case. It's not a pretty room at all," she said decidedly.
"Come away, Bet."

Bertha then led the way up a very narrow flight of steps, which were
scarcely to be called a staircase. They creaked under her feet, and
even Joy's light tread made them squeak and shake.

"Here's where I sleep;" and Joy found herself in a little room with a
sloping roof and a beam. The room was in fact only a loft for storage,
but it was thought good enough for Bertha.

"I wanted to show you this," Bertha said; "it's the only keepsake I've
got. It was once my poor Aunt Maggie's, and she gave it to me. I can
just remember her kissing me one night, and saying, 'God bless you--you
poor orphan.' I must have been a little thing, perhaps four years old,
for it's such a long time ago, and I am nearly fifteen."

Bertha had dived into the depths of a trunk covered with spotted lila