"Not there!" cried Mrs. Jarley. "Then where will you be?"
"I—I—don't quite know. I am not certain."
"You don't mean to say that you don't know where you're going to!" said the lady of the caravan. "What line are you in? You looked to me at the races, child, as if you were quite out of your place."
"We were there quite by accident," returned Nell; "we are poor people, ma'am, and are only wandering about. We have nothing to do; I wish we had."
"You amaze me more and more," said Mrs. Jarley after a while. "Why, what do you call yourselves? Not beggars?"
"Indeed, ma'am, I don't know what else we are," returned the child.
"Lord bless me!" said the lady of the caravan. "I never heard of such a thing. Who'd have thought it?"
She remained so long silent after this that Nell feared she was vexed. At length she said,—
"And yet you can read. And write too, I shouldn't wonder?"
"Yes, ma'am," said the child timidly.