Poor Sloppy flushed too, for there was an instinctive delicacy behind his buttons, and his own hand had struck it. 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 anyone else. Please may I look at it?”

Miss Wren was in the act of handing it to him over her bench, when she paused. “But you had better see me use it,” she said, sharply. “This is the way. Hoppetty, Kicketty, Pep-peg-peg. Not pretty; is it?”

“It seems to me that you hardly want it at all,” said Sloppy.

The little dressmaker sat down again, and gave it into his hand, saying, with that better look upon her, and with a smile: “Thank you!”