"There's a friend of mine lives here," said Nellie, turning into one of
these narrow alleys that led, as they could see, into a busier and
bustling street. "If you don't mind we'll go up and I can help her a bit,
and you can see how one sort of sweating is done. I worked at it for a
spell once, when dressmaking was slack. In the same house, too."

She stopped at the doorway of one of a row of three-storied houses. On
the doorstep were a group of little children, all barefooted and more or
less ragged in spite of evident attempts to keep some of them patched
into neatness. They looked familiarly at Nellie and curiously at Ned.

"How's mother, Johnny?" asked Nellie of one of them, a small pinched
little fellow of six or seven, who nursed a baby of a year or so old, an
ill-nourished baby that seemed wilting in the heat.

"She's working," answered the little fellow, looking anxiously at Nellie
as she felt in her pocket.

"There's a penny for you," said Nellie, "and here's a penny for Dicky,"
patting a little five-year-old on the head, "and here's one to buy some
milk for the baby."

Johnny rose with glad eagerness, the baby in his arms and the pennies in
his hand.

"I shall buy 'specks' with mine," he cried joyfully.

"What's 'specks?'" asked Ned, puzzled, as the children went off, the
elder staggering under his burden.