“And have you come alone?”
“Oh no, mum; I come along o’ my brother, a little chap, and a bigger feller.”
“Then you ought to be with them. This is not a safe place for a little girl to be all alone in.”
“Oh, they doesn’t want me,” said Flo; “the little chap’s in the fusee line, and the big ’un’s in the blackin’ line, and they says as it ’ud spile the trade fur a small-dolls seller to be along o’ them. That’s ’ow I’m alone, ma’am,” and here veritable tears did fill the child’s eyes to overflowing.
“Well, I am alone too,” said her companion in a kinder tone than ever; “so if you wish to stay with me you may; I can show you the best parts to sell your dolls in.”
And this was the beginning of one of the brightest days Flo had ever yet spent. How she did enjoy the breezes on the common now that she had a companion, how she did gaze at the wonderful, ever-increasing crowd.
She had soon told her story to her new friend; all about Dick and herself, and their mother, and their promise to be honest; something too about Scamp, and also about the big feller who she was afraid was a thief, but whose name somehow she forgot to mention.
In return her companion told her something of her own story.
“I come year after year out here,” she said sadly. “Not that I sells here, or knows anything of the Derby; but I come looking for one that I love—one that has gone like the prodigal astray, but like the prodigal he’ll come back—he’ll come back.”
This speech was very strange and incomprehensible to Flo; but she liked her companion more and more, and thought she had never met so kind a woman, she looked at her once or twice nearly as nicely as mother used to look.