Charley continued to look so astonished that Biddy explained: "'Most every one wants a girl to do chores, an' sweep, an' dust, an' make fires, an'—an' sich. I've seen lots o' girls no better nor me sweepin' in the big houses, with cloths on their heads."
"Ye know all them things?" said Charley.
"An' if I don't, can't I be teached?" said Biddy, almost angrily. This question seemed to make everything quite sure.
"Now I'm goin' to begin," said Biddy.
"BLESS ME! IF IT ISN'T PHIL KENNEDY."
She darted away, and ran back to the place where she and Charley had met. Charley slowly followed. He held his unsold papers under his arm, and stopped by the jewelry window. Biddy had taken her stand on the corner just opposite. A gentleman with a closed umbrella in his hand, which he used as a cane, was coming down the Bowery toward them. He did not seem to notice either of the children; his head was down as if he was thinking. At the same instant another man, with his Ulster coat flying back, came swiftly from a cross street, and taking the first gentleman by the arm, said, so loud that both the children heard it: "Bless me! if it isn't Phil Kennedy! How odd this is! The first day for an age when I'm not thinking of and hunting for you, Phil, I find you."
"But I'm very busy; you really must not keep me," said the one called Phil Kennedy. He smiled as he spoke. Biddy saw the smile. She did not wait an instant; she stepped up close in front of him. "Does yer missus be wantin' a girl?"
Both men looked down at her. The man in the Ulster laughed. "Get along, you little drab!" said he, in the same loud voice as before.
Biddy did not move, or take her eyes from Phil Kennedy's face. The fingers of her hands were twisting together as on the day when she had first begged Mrs. Brown for her doll. Biddy did not know she was doing anything with her hands.