A little girl with long shining ringlets and a pink coat walked up the terrace, and with her a lady wearing a fur scarf on her shoulders.

The child took her eyes from the window to stare at her mother. “The lady there is you, Mam, and that’s me with the coat and the curly hair.”

The mother gave her a derisive push.

“Go on with you,” she said, smiling sheepishly at Mrs. Derdon.

The child pulled violently and cried out with temper.

“There we are!” she screamed. “Look at us out there.”

“Shut up your mouth. I’m getting sick and tired of your lies,” the mother cried, giving her a hard slap. The child grinned quickly up at them before the tears had gone back into her eyes.

“You slap her too often altogether,” Mrs. Derdon protested.

“Ah, you know yourself it’s the only way to get any sense into them, ma’am. This one’s got into the habit of telling lies and trying to show off every minute. She’s got too impudent.”

The child left the window and bounced on the bed.

“This is mine,” she said, a trifle subdued, winding her long dirty fingers over the end rail. Her fingers were like twigs, her eyes were sharp as thorns; there was neither love nor shame in her smile. She lay back on the bed and stretched her ragged arms across the white quilt.

“That’s a brooch you have on you,” she said inquisitively.

Mrs. Derdon was wearing an elaborate brooch of gold and blue enamel. She put her hand up and touched it.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give it to you for a present,” she said quickly, and she leaned over the end of the bed and pinned the brooch to the child’s dress, where it lay heavily among the rags as though it had been thrown away. The child glanced triumphantly at her mother who, observing Mrs. Derdon for the first time, wore a startled and distrustful air. The poor woman grew jumpy, fearful that the gift might be regretted before they had time to get out of the house. She urged the child to get up off the clean quilt, and to stop annoying the lady, and to say thanks for the lovely brooch. The child, an experienced conspirator, hopped obediently off the bed and was downstairs in the hall before her mother had finished blessing their benefactor.