"With my second father. Or
with my first, for that matter." And she shook her head and drew a sigh.
"If you had known a poor child I used to have here," she added, "you'd
have understood me. But you didn't and you can't. All the better!"
"You must have been taught a long time, Miss," said Sloppy, glancing at
the array of dolls on hand, "before you came to work so neatly, Miss,
and with such a pretty taste."
"Never was taught a stitch, young man!" returned the dressmaker, tossing
her head. "Just gobbled and gobbled, till I found out how to do it.
Badly enough at first, but better now."
"And here have I," said Sloppy, in a self-reproachful tone, "been
a-learning and a-learning at cabinet-making, ever so long! I'll tell you
what, Miss, I should like to make you something."
"Much obliged, but what?"
"I could make you," said Sloppy, surveying the room, "a handy set of
nests to lay the dolls in. Or a little set of drawers to keep your silks
and threads and scraps in. Or I could turn you a rare handle for that
crutch-stick, if it belongs to him you call your father."
"It belongs to me," said the little creature, with a quick flush of her
face and neck. "I am lame."
Poor Sloppy flushed too, for there was an instinctive delicacy behind
his buttons. He said perhaps, the best thing in the way of amends that
could be said. "I am very glad it's yours, because I'd rather ornament
it for you than for any one else.
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