y broke up into a
merry noisy crowd, running and shouting, chasing each other from side to
side, jumping, hopping, and skipping as they went down the street.

'Oh dear, what a noise them children do make!' said old Mrs. North, as
she got up and shut her cottage door.

But the noise soon died away, for the children were hungry, and they
were hurrying home to dinner.

What is that little bit of red that we see in front of the crowd? It is
a little girl in a scarlet cloak, and she is turning down a long
straight road which leads into the heart of the city. Let us follow her
and see where she is going. She is very tidily dressed; there is a clean
white holland pinafore under the scarlet cloak, and although her shoes
are old, they are well patched and mended. But she is turning into a
very poor part of the city--the streets are getting narrower and more
crowded, and they are getting darker, too, for the quaint, old-fashioned
houses overhang the pavement, and so nearly meet overhead, that very
little light or air can get into the dismal street below.

Still on and on goes the little red cloak. And now she is turning down a
court on the left-hand side of the street. An open court it ought to be,
with a row of houses on each side, and an open space in the middle; but
it is not an open space to-day, for it is everybody's washing-day in
Grey Friars Court, and long lines are stretched from side to side, and
shirts and petticoats and stockings and all manner of garments are
waving in the breeze.

The little red cloak threads her way underneath; sometimes the corner of
a wet towel hits her in the face, sometimes she has to bend almost
double to get underneath a dripping blanket or sheet. But she makes her
way through them all, and passes on to the last house in that long
dingy court, and as she does so she notices a little crowd of women
standing by her mother's door. There is old Mrs. Smith leaning on her
crutches, and Sarah Anne Spavin and her mother, and Mrs. Lee with her
baby in her arms, and Mrs. Holliday, with Tommy and Freddy and Ann
Eliza. And as she looks up she sees several faces looking out of the
windows overhead.

What could be the matter? Had anything happened to her mother? Was her
mother dead? That was her first thought, poor child. But nobody was
looking particularly grave, and they laughed as they caught sight of the
little red cloak coming under the white sheets and table-cloths.

'Why, here's Poppy!' said