Buttered toast was a luxury that did not often find its way to the Chaplin's room, unless brought by a neighbour, and it was an unwritten law in the house that if one of them did have a little delicacy of any kind, Winny was to share it. But where every one was so poor and had such a hard struggle for daily bread, it was not often that such chances occurred, and Winny wondered as she munched her toast where Annie could have got it from.
Before the room was made tidy for the day, there came a knock at the door, and a tall slatternly girl put her head in the next moment.
"Can you sew some sacks for mother and get 'em done to-night?" asked a gruff voice, but the towsled head was nodded in a pleasant manner towards Winny, and she said, "I've heard about you though you don't know me."
"No, I don't think I do," said Mrs. Chaplin. "But I shall be glad to do the sacks," she added quickly, for this chance of earning a few pence was most providential.
"I told mother you'd do 'em. I'll bring 'em over directly." And with another nod towards Winny, the girl shut the door and ran downstairs.
"I wonder who she can be," said Winny. "She seemed to think she knew me, but I have never seen her before."
"No, I suppose not; but I have seen her going up and down the street with a pile of sacks on her head, so I suppose they do a lot of that work and they're pretty busy now."
Winny did all she could towards her own dressing in the thick long frock that her mother had made for her to wear in the day-time, and then she was settled on her little couch, where she could see to read or look out at the children playing in the back yard, while her mother put the bed away and was in readiness to begin upon the sacks when the girl brought them.
"You'll be sure to let us have them all done by ten o'clock to-night," she said when she dropped her bundle on the floor.
Mrs. Chaplin looked at the pile of coarse sacking, and wondered whether she could get through so much in the time. She had sewed sacks before, and knew that it was hard work, and could not be got through very quickly, and so she said: "What time have these got to go in?"