bby-horse, the doctor, the foreign gentleman,
the executioner, and the devil, all were here. Their owners had
evidently come to that spot to make some needful repairs in their stock,
for one of them was engaged in binding together a small gallows with
thread, while the other was intent upon fixing a new black wig.

They greeted the strangers with a nod, and the old man sitting down
beside them, and looking at the figures with extreme delight, began to
talk. While they chatted, Mr. Short, a little merry, red-faced man with
twinkling eyes, turning over the figures in the box, drew one forth,
saying ruefully to his companion, Codlin by name: "Look here, here's all
this Judy's clothes falling to pieces again. You haven't got needle and
thread, I suppose?"

The little man shook his head, and seeing that they were at a loss,
Nell said timidly:

"I have a needle, sir, in my basket, and thread too. Will you let me try
to mend it for you? I think I could do it neater than you could."

As Mr. Codlin had nothing to urge against a proposal so seasonable,
Nelly was soon busily engaged in her task, and accomplishing it to a
miracle. While she was thus engaged, the merry little man looked at her
with an interest which did not appear to be diminished when he glanced
at her helpless companion. When she had finished her work, he thanked
her, and inquired whither they were travelling.

"N-no further to-night, I think," said the child, looking toward her
grandfather.

"If you're wanting a place to stop at," the man remarked, "I should
advise you to take up at the same house with us. The long, low, white
house there. It's very cheap."

The old man, who would have remained in the churchyard all night if his
new acquaintances had stayed there too, yielded to this suggestion a
ready and rapturous assent, and they all rose and walked away together
to the public house, where, after witnessing an exhibition of the show,
they had a good supper, but Nell was too tired to eat, and was grateful
when they retired to the loft where they were to rest. The old man was
uneasy when he had lain down, and begged that Nell would come and sit at
his bedside as she had done for so many nights. She sat there till he
slept, then went to her own room and sat thinking of the life that was
before them.

She had a little money, but it was very little, and when that was gone,
they must begin to beg. There was one piece of gold among it, and an
emergency migh