r second.

It seems odd that a hole in one's begging basket should be an
advantage.

But because of the hole, she had always behind her a crowd of dogs,
that seemed to have been just dropped from the basket, the last one
never having fairly got his nose out; and because of the dogs she was
known as "Puppet" all over the city.

To be known by a characteristic name is of great advantage to a
beggar.

If Biddy, looking from the basement door, says to cook, "Och, an'
there comes up the street our little Puppet, with her dogs all behind
her, carrying her basket," cook is much more likely to see the broken
bits "botherin' roun' on the schalves o' the cubbid," than she would
be if Biddy should say, "Shure, an' thir cams to us a dirty beggar, it
is."

But it is with Puppet's first occupation, and not her second, that we
have to do. If you had not read more descriptions of faces within the
last year than you can possibly remember in all the years of your life
put together, I would tell you what sort of face Puppet's was; that it
was a bright face, with blue eyes, just the color of the blue ribbon
that went first round the guitar's neck, and then round Puppet's; that
Puppet's teeth were as white as the mother-of-pearl pegs that held her
guitar strings at the bottom; that her cheeks were as white as the
ivory keys; that her hair was long, and yellow--just the shade of the
guitar's yellow face.

But that would be very much like a dozen other faces that you have
seen; so I will only say that it was a smiling little face.

It smiled as it bent over the guitar, while the little fingers picked
their ways in and out among the strings; and it smiled yet more
sweetly as she looked up to catch the coppers thrown from the fourth
and fifth story, and sky-parlor windows.

Puppet once lived with a man who said that he was her uncle; and she
believed him so thoroughly, that she let him box her ears whenever he
felt like it, till he died. Since then Puppet had lived almost
friendless and alone.

One hot July day Puppet was wandering through the streets of the great
city, with her little guitar under her little arm. The city did not
seem so great to Puppet as it does to some of the rest of us, because
she was born and brought up there.

"O, dear," sighed Puppet, "_what_ a mean place you are!"

No one had given her a copper since the cool of the morning. People
seemed to have a fancy for spending their coppers on soda-water and
ice