Judy, with her brother’s wink, shakes her head and purses up her mouth into no without saying it.
“No?” returns the old man. “Why not?”
“She’d want sixpence a day, and we can do it for less,” says Judy.
“Sure?”
Judy answers with a nod of deepest meaning and calls, as she scrapes the butter on the loaf with every precaution against waste and cuts it into slices, “You, Charley, where are you?” Timidly obedient to the summons, a little girl in a rough apron and a large bonnet, with her hands covered with soap and water and a scrubbing brush in one of them, appears, and curtsys.
“What work are you about now?” says Judy, making an ancient snap at her like a very sharp old beldame.
“I’m a-cleaning the upstairs back room, miss,” replies Charley.
“Mind you do it thoroughly, and don’t loiter. Shirking won’t do for me. Make haste! Go along!” cries Judy with a stamp upon the ground. “You girls are more trouble than you’re worth, by half.”
On this severe matron, as she returns to her task of scraping the butter and cutting the bread, falls the shadow of her brother, looking in at the window. For whom, knife and loaf in hand, she opens the street-door.
“Aye, aye, Bart!” says Grandfather Smallweed. “Here you are, hey?”
“Here I am,” says Bart.
“Been along with your friend again, Bart?”
Small nods.