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“Should if it’s good,” returned Miss Wren.

“You shall try. Put your little feet on the fender. It’s a cold, cold night, and the fog clings so.” As Miss Abbey helped her to turn her chair, her loosened bonnet fell on the floor. “Why, what lovely hair!” cried Miss Abbey. “And enough to make wigs: for all the dolls in the world. What a quantity!”

“Call that a quantity?” returned Miss Wren. ” Poof ! What do you say to the rest of it?” As she spoke, she untied a band, and the golden stream fell over herself, and over the chair, and flowed down to the ground. Miss Abbey’s admiration seemed to increase her perplexity. She beckoned the Jew towards her, and whispered:

“Child or woman?”

“Child in years,” was the answer; “woman in self-reliance and trial.”

“You are talking about me, good people,” thought Miss Jenny, sitting in her golden bower, warming her feet. “I can’t hear what you say, but I know your tricks and your manners!”

The shrub, mixed by Miss Potterson’s skilful hands, was perfectly satisfactory to Miss Jenny’s palate, and she sat and sipped it leisurely while the interview between Mr. Riah and Miss Potterson proceeded, keenly regretting when the bottom of the glass was reached, and the interview at an end.

There was at this time much curiosity among Lizzie Hexam’s acquaintances to discover her hiding-place, and many of them paid visits to the dolls’ dressmaker in hopes of obtaining from her the desired address. Among these was Mr. Wrayburn, whom we find calling upon Miss Wren one evening:

“And so, Miss Jenny,” he said, “I cannot persuade you to dress me a doll?”

“No,” replied Miss Wren snappishly; “If you want one, go and buy it at the shop.”

“And my charming young goddaughter,” said Mr. Wrayburn plaintively, “down in Hertfordshire–“

(“Humbugshire, you mean, I think,” interposed Miss Wren)–“is to be put upon the cold footing of the general public, and is to derive no advantage from my private acquaintance with the Court dressmaker?”

“If it’s any advantage to your charming godchild, and oh, a precious godfather she has got!” replied Miss Wren, pricking at him in the air with her needle, “to be informed that the Court dressmaker knows your tricks and your manners, you may tell her so, by post, with my compliments.”

Miss Wren was busy with her work, by candlelight, and Mr. Wrayburn, half amused and half vexed, stood by her bench looking on, while her troublesome child was in the corner, in deep disgrace on account of his bad behavior, and as Miss Jenny worked, she rated him severely, accompanying each reproach with a stamp of her foot.

“Pay five shillings for you indeed!” she exclaimed in response to his appeal for money. “How many hours do you suppose it costs me to earn five shillings, you infamous boy? Don’t cry like that, or I’ll throw a doll at you. Pay five shillings fine for you, indeed! Fine in more ways than one, I think! I’d give the dustman five shillings to carry you off in the dust-cart.”

The figure in the corner continuing to whine and whimper, Miss Wren covered her face with her hand. “There!” she said, “I can’t bear to look at you. Go upstairs and get me my bonnet and shawl. Make yourself useful in some way, bad boy, and let me have your room instead of your company, for one half minute.”

Obeying her, he shambled out, and Mr. Wrayburn, pitying, saw the tears exude between the little creature’s fingers, as she kept her hand before her eyes.

“I am going to the Italian Opera to try on,” said Miss Wren, taking away her hand, and laughing satirically to hide that she had been crying. “But let me first tell you, Mr. Wrayburn, once for all, that it’s no use your paying visits to me. You wouldn’t get what you want of me, no, not if you brought pincers with you to tear it out.”