They greeted the strangers with a nod, and the old man sitting down beside them, and looking at the figures with extreme delight, began to talk.  While they chatted, Mr. Short, a little merry, red-faced man with twinkling eyes, turning over the figures in the box, drew one forth, saying ruefully to his companion, Codlin by name:  “Look here, here’s all this Judy’s clothes falling to pieces again.  You haven’t got needle and thread, I suppose?”

The little man shook his head, and seeing that they were at a loss, Nell said timidly: 

“I have a needle, sir, in my basket, and thread too.  Will you let me try to mend it for you?  I think I could do it neater than you could.”

As Mr. Codlin had nothing to urge against a proposal so seasonable, Nelly was soon busily engaged in her task, and accomplishing it to a miracle.  While she was thus engaged, the merry little man looked at her with an interest which did not appear to be diminished when he glanced at her helpless companion.  When she had finished her work, he thanked her, and inquired whither they were travelling.

“N-no further to-night, I think,” said the child, looking toward her grandfather.

“If you’re wanting a place to stop at,” the man remarked, “I should advise you to take up at the same house with us.  The long, low, white house there.  It’s very cheap.”

The old man, who would have remained in the churchyard all night if his new acquaintances had stayed there too, yielded to this suggestion a ready and rapturous assent, and they all rose and walked away together to the public house, where, after witnessing an exhibition of the show, they had a good supper, but Nell was too tired to eat, and was grateful when they retired to the loft where they were to rest.  The old man was uneasy when he had lain down, and begged that Nell would come and sit at his bedside as she had done for so many nights.  She sat there till he slept, then went to her own room and sat thinking of the life that was before them.

She had a little money, but it was very little, and when that was gone, they must begin to beg.  There was one piece of gold among it, and an emergency might come when its worth to them might be increased a hundredfold.  It would be best to hide this coin, and never produce it unless their case was absolutely desperate.  Her resolution taken, she sewed the piece of gold into her dress, and going to bed with a lighter heart, sunk into a deep slumber.

On the following morning, Mr. Short asked Nell, “And where are you going to-day?”

“Indeed I hardly know,” replied the child.

“We’re going on to the races,” said the little man.  “If you’d like to have us for company, let us travel together.”

“Well go with you,” said the old man eagerly.  “Nell—­with them, with them.”

The child considered for a moment, and reflecting that she must soon beg, and could scarcely do so at a better place, thanked the little man for his offer, and said they would accompany him.