Flo raised her eyes, and a middle-aged woman, with a face as kind as her voice, and an appearance very much more respectable than the crowds about her, stood by her side.
“Are you waiting for your mother, my dear?” said the woman again, finding that Flo only gazed at her, and did not speak. “Or don’t you want to come and get some breakfast?”
“Please, mum,” said Flo, suddenly starting to her feet, and remembering that she was very hungry, “may I go wid you and ’ave some breakfast? I ’ave got sixpence to buy it, mum.”
“Come, then,” said the woman, “I will take care of you. Here, give me your dolls,” and holding the dolls’ tray in one hand, and the child herself by the other, she went across to where a bustling, hungry throng were surrounding the coffee-stalls.
Flo and her companion were presently served, and then they sat down on the first quiet spot they could find to enjoy their meal.
“Is you in the small-dolls, or the Aunt Sally, or the clothes’ brusher’s, or the shoe-blacker’s line, mum?” asked Flo, who observed that her companion was not carrying any goods for sale.
“No, child, I don’t do business here—I only come to look on.”
“Oh, that’s werry fine fur you!” said Flo; “but is it as yer don’t find sellin’ make? Why, I ’spects to make a penny, and maybe tuppence, on hevery one of these blessed dolls.”
“Is this the first time you have been here?” asked the woman.
“Yes, mum.”