“Not altogether,” said Aunt Judy, smiling, “as you shall hear.  One day the two little motherless girls went hand in hand across one of the courts of the great Charity Institution in London, where their grandmamma lived, into the old archway entrance, and there they stood still, looking round them, as if waiting for something.  The old archway entrance opened into a square, and underneath its shelter there was a bench on one side, and on the other the lodge of the porter, whose business it was to shut up the great gates at night.

The porter had often before looked at the motherless children as they passed into the shadow of his archway, and said to himself, ’Poor little things;’ for just so, during many years of his life, he had watched their young mother pass through, and had exchanged words of friendly greeting with her.

“And even now, although it was at least a year and a half since her death, when he saw the waiting children seat themselves on the bench opposite his door, the old thought stole over his mind.  How sad that she should have been taken away so early from those little ones!  How sad for them to be left!  No one—­nothing—­in this world, could supply the loss of her protecting care.—­Poor little things!—­and not the less so because they were altogether unconscious of their misfortune; and here, with the mourning casting a gloom over their fair young faces, were looking with the utmost eagerness and delight towards the doorway,—­now and then slipping down from their seats to take a peep into the Square, and see if what they expected was coming,—­now and then giggling to each other about the grave face of the old man on the other side of the way.

“At last, one, who had been peeping a bit as before, exclaimed, with a smothered shout, ‘Here he is!’ and then the other joined her, and the two rushed out together into the Square and stood on the pavement, stopping the way in front of a lad, who held over his arm a basket containing hares’ and rabbits’ skins, in which he carried on a small trade.

“They looked up with their smiling faces into his, and he grinned at them in return, and then they said, ‘Have you got any for us to-day?’ on which he set down his basket before them, and told them they might have one or two if they pleased, and down they knelt upon the pavement, examining the contents of his basket, and talked in almost breathless whispers to each other of the respective merits, the softness, colour, and prettiness, of—­what do you think?”

At the first moment No. 6, being engrossed by the story, could not guess at all; but in another instant she recollected, and exclaimed:-

“Oh, Aunt Judy, do you mean those were the rabbits’ tails you told about?”