introducing herself as a breastpin.

"I suppose you are a diamond?" she observed.

"Why, yes, something of that kind."

And then each believed the other to be a very valuable thing; and they
began speaking about the world, and how very conceited it was.

"I have been in a lady's box," said the Darning-needle, "and this
lady was a cook. She had five fingers on each hand, and I never saw
anything so conceited as those five fingers. And yet they were only
there that they might take me out of the box and put me back into it."

"Were they of good birth?" asked the Bit of Bottle.

"No, indeed," replied the Darning-needle: "but very haughty. There
were five brothers, all of the finger family. They kept very proudly
together though they were of different lengths: the outermost, the
thumbling, was short and fat; he walked out in front of the ranks, and
only had one joint in his back, and could only make a single bow; but
he said that if he were hacked off a man, that man was useless for
service in war. Dainty-mouth, the second finger, thrust himself into
sweet and sour, pointed to sun and moon, and gave the impression when
they wrote. Longman, the third, looked at all the others over his
shoulder. Goldborder, the fourth, went about with a golden belt round
his waist; and little Playman did nothing at all, and was proud of it.
There was nothing but bragging among them, and therefore I went away."

"And now we sit here and glitter!" said the Bit of Bottle.

At that moment more water came into the gutter, so that it overflowed,
and the Bit of Bottle was carried away.

"So he is disposed of," observed the Darning-needle. "I remain here.
I am too fine. But that's my pride, and my pride is honorable." And
proudly she sat there, and had many great thoughts. "I could almost
believe I had been born of a sunbeam, I'm so fine! It really appears
as if the sunbeams were always seeking for me under the water. Ah!
I'm so fine that my mother cannot find me. If I had my old eye, which
broke off, I think I should cry; but, no, I should not do that; it's
not genteel to cry."

One day a couple of street boys lay grubbing in the gutter, where they
sometimes found old nails, farthings, and similar treasures. It was
dirty work, but they took great delight in it.

"Oh!" cried one, who had pricked himself with the Darning-needle,
"there's a fellow for you!"

"I'm not a fellow; I'm a young lady!" said the Darning-needle.

But nobody liste