In this old fashion, Mattie earned a few pence at times; she was small for her age—very small—and the anxious-looking face touched those who had odd coppers to spare. But it was a task to live notwithstanding, and Mattie fought hard with the rest of the waifs and strays who had a tough battle to wage that winter time. "Luck went dead against her," as she termed it; she was barred from the market by want of capital—one lot of goods that she had speculated in never went off her hands, or rather her basket, on which they withered more and more with the frost, until they became unsaleable products—and there was no demand for lucifers or anything!
Mattie was nearly starving when the old tempter turned up in Great Suffolk Street—at the time when she was weak, and the police had been more than commonly "down on her," and she had not taken a halfpenny that day—at a time when the tempter does turn up as a general pile, that is, when we are waiting very anxiously for an Excuse.
"What! Mattie!—Lor! the sight o' time since I set eyes on you!"
"What! Mrs. Watts!"
"What are you doing, girl?—not much for yourself, I should think," with a disparaging glance at the tattered habiliments of our heroine.
"Not much just now, Mrs. Watts—hard lines it is."
"Ah! well, it may be—you allus wanted pluck, Mattie, like your mother. And hard lines it is just now, for those who stand nice about trifles. What's that in your hand, gal?"
"Congreve lights."
"What! still at Congreve lights—if I shouldn't hate the werry sight and smell on 'em by this time."
"So I do," said Mattie, sullenly.