that shall make father believe you are beginning to earn
a stray living along shore.'

'You are father's favourite, and can make him believe anything.'

'I wish I could, Charley! For if I could make him believe that learning
was a good thing, and that we might lead better lives, I should be
a'most content to die.'

'Don't talk stuff about dying, Liz.'

She placed her hands in one another on his shoulder, and laying her
rich brown cheek against them as she looked down at the fire, went on
thoughtfully:

'Of an evening, Charley, when you are at the school, and father's--'

'At the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters,' the boy struck in, with a
backward nod of his head towards the public-house.

'Yes. Then as I sit a-looking at the fire, I seem to see in the burning
coal--like where that glow is now--'

'That's gas, that is,' said the boy, 'coming out of a bit of a forest
that's been under the mud that was under the water in the days of Noah's
Ark. Look here! When I take the poker--so--and give it a dig--'

'Don't disturb it, Charley, or it'll be all in a blaze. It's that dull
glow near it, coming and going, that I mean. When I look at it of an
evening, it comes like pictures to me, Charley.'

'Show us a picture,' said the boy. 'Tell us where to look.'

'Ah! It wants my eyes, Charley.'

'Cut away then, and tell us what your eyes make of it.'

'Why, there are you and me, Charley, when you were quite a baby that
never knew a mother--'

'Don't go saying I never knew a mother,' interposed the boy, 'for I knew
a little sister that was sister and mother both.'

The girl laughed delightedly, and here eyes filled with pleasant tears,
as he put both his arms round her waist and so held her.

'There are you and me, Charley, when father was away at work and locked
us out, for fear we should set ourselves afire or fall out of window,
sitting on the door-sill, sitting on other door-steps, sitting on the
bank of the river, wandering about to get through the time. You
are rather heavy to carry, Charley, and I am often obliged to rest.
Sometimes we are sleepy and fall asleep together in a corner, sometimes
we are very hungry, sometimes we are a little frightened, but what is
oftenest hard upon us is the cold. You remember, Charley?'

'I remember,' said the boy, pressing her to him twice or thrice, 'that I
snuggled under a little shawl, and it was warm there.'

'Sometimes it rains, and we creep under a boat or the like of tha