's most womanly work, and though you may never need to sew for
yourself, if you knew how, you might teach hundreds of poor girls to sew
and clothe themselves and their families.'"

"My little daughter teaching a sewing-school! How funny it would be!"

"So that afternoon we went into Shreve's and selected one, and had my
name engraved on it; and that night Uncle Phil was taken ill. So of
course I feel badly, papa; don't you see why?"

"Yes, Florimel; but perhaps we shall find this thimble. Have you had
Janet search for it?"

"Indeed I have, all day long. I had it yesterday at work on my
Kensington, and think Janet must have taken it up among the bits of
worsted when she put them into the scrap bag; and Ann sold all the
scraps last night to the ragman. Oh dear! I shall never see it again."

"Hif you please, sir," said Jacobs, appearing in the doorway, "there's a
vagrant at the basement door. Three times hi've sent 'er away, han'
three times she 'as returned, hevery time hasking for Miss Florimel,
han' sayin' she _must_ see 'er."

"To see me? At the basement door? How strange!" and Florimel forgot her
tears in her eagerness to see what the poor child at the door could
want.

Her papa hurried down stairs after her, and saw her face radiant with
joy as she held in her hand a gold thimble, while a scantily clothed
girl stood beside her awkwardly twisting the corner of her shabby shawl.

"Oh, papa! this girl Nancy found my thimble among some rags, and brought
it back to me. Oh, what can I do for her, papa?"

"How did you know whose the thimble was, my child?"

"I warn't sure, sir," faltered Nance, whose honor had outweighed her
longing for money and the comfort it would bring, and had brought her
through the long city to seek the rightful owner of the thimble--"I
warn't _sure_; but I knew her name, for herself an' a gennelman came
onst to see mother long ago."

"That was Uncle Phil," said Florimel. "He used often to take me when he
went to visit the poor. But how did you know where I lived?"'

"I knew the house, 'cause he told me to come here onst for some soup for
mother, an' I came an' got it."

"How is your mother now?"

"She's dead, miss," sobbed Nance.

"And so is Uncle Phil;" and the two girls--the one so fair and beautiful
and carefully guarded, the other so pale and pinched and
friendless--forgot for a moment all but their sorrow, their longing for
the dear dead faces they could never see again.

Bu