nonsense! here, Fluff;" but Fluff was scuttling
down-stairs as fast as she could go, and Fern was only in time to see
her little feet whisking through the shop door.

"I don't believe there is such another child in the United Kingdom,"
she said to herself, laughing. "She is terribly young for her age, but
so amusing; how dull it will be without her this afternoon, and poor
Crystal so far away, I wish mother had not let her go, or that she
were safe home again;" and Fern sighed as she looked round the empty
room.

Now it so happened that Fluff had coaxed her mother to let her take a
walk alone on her birthday; this was the treat she had selected for
the occasion.

She was to wear her best frock and her new hat that Crystal had
trimmed for her as a parting present; and she had promised to be very
careful, and not go too far. The four-pence was to be expended in
buns--so she and her mother had arranged, but Fluff had secretly
intended to put it to another purpose, until her conscientious
scruples had obliged her to leave it at home instead of paying the
omnibus fare that was to save her poor little legs; they would get
sorely tired before they reached their destination.

Fluff ran down several streets, till she was out of breath, and then
she fell into a little trot; but first she gave the half-penny to a
ragged boy, and begged him earnestly never to tell stories; and after
that she asked him the way to Belgravia. Not getting a lucid answer
from him, as he only told her that he had been a cripple from his
birth and had sold lucifers ever since, which, being brimstone, was
bad for the rheumatics, Fluff told him that she would have repeated
the whole story of Ananias and Sapphira to him, only she had no time,
and then she resumed her walk with much dignity.

And the method of it was this--if method it could be called which had,
in its sidelong movements, the similitude of a crab. First she went
into every baker's shop she passed, and, shaking her head sorrowfully
at the fresh currant-buns on the counters, asked in a confidential
whisper the quickest and shortest way to Belgravia; and when they
wished to know what part, or asked her business, in a kindly way, she
pursed up her mouth and said that was not the question, and would they
please confine themselves to facts, or some such speech, in her odd
abrupt way.

And she looked such a little lady as she spoke, and held her little
head up so proudly, that most of them