Mr Smith, the clergyman of the parish where Margery and Tommy were born, was a very worthy man, and being at this time visited by a rich and charitable friend, he told him the story of the poor orphans. The stranger gave Mr. Smith money to buy some clothes for Margery, and said that he would make Tommy a little sailor. Tommy was happy to hear this, and next day the gentleman bought him a jacket and trowsers, of which he was very proud. Margery could never give over admiring Tommy in his new dress; but her happiness met with a severe check, for the gentleman was to return to London in a few days, and to take Tommy along with him.

The parting of these children was very affecting; poor Margery's eyes were red with crying, and her cheeks pale with grief, while little Tommy, by way of consolation, said he would never forget his dear sister, and kissed her a hundred times over. As Tommy left his sister, he wiped her eyes with the corner of his jacket, and promised to return, and bring her fine things from abroad.

When Margery found that Tommy did not come back, she cried all day until she went to bed, and next morning she went round every one in the village, weeping and lamenting that her brother Tommy was gone. Fortunately, while she was in this distress, the shoemaker came with a pair of new shoes, which the gentleman had ordered for her, and it being so long since little Margery wore a pair of shoes, her attention was so engaged as to give a new turn to her thoughts. Nothing but the pleasure of examining her two shoes could have put a stop to the violence of her grief. She immediately put on the shoes, and then went to let Mrs. Smith see them. It was with delight that little Margery exhibited them to her benefactress, saying, "Two shoes, ma'am! see, two shoes!" She then went through the whole village to show her new shoes, addressing them in the same way, until she got the name of "Little Two Shoes," but, being a very good child, they usually called her "Little Goody Two Shoes," and she never entirely lost that name.

Poor Margery was destitute of friends; but, although very young, she contrived to meet the children as they returned from school, and prevailed on one of them to learn her the alphabet. She used to borrow their books, and sit down and read till they came from dinner. It was by these means that she soon acquired more learning than her playmates at school, and in a short time she formed a little plan for instructing children who had not yet learned to read.

She found that there were twenty-six letters in the alphabet, and every word spelled with them; but as these letters might be either large or small, she cut, out of little pieces of wood, ten sets of the alphabet in small letters, and ten of the large, or capitals. With the assistance of an old spelling-book, she made her companions arrange the words they wanted to spell out of her wooden alphabets, and then showed them how to make sentences. When they wished to play at this game, she placed the children around her, and gave them a word to spell. If the word was plum-pudding, the first brought the letter p, the second i, the third u, the fourth m, and so on, till the whole was completed.

By this method, in a short time Margery gained such great credit among the parents of the children that they were all happy when she appeared with the basket of letters in her hand, which proved a source of amusement as well as instruction, and she at last had a regular set of scholars.

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Margery usually left home at seven o clock in the morning, and the first house she called at was Farmer Wilson's.