would get made some time next month."

Kitty was only twelve years old, but, like most of those children who
have been left to bring themselves up, and pick up wisdom and wickedness
wherever they are to be found, she was wonderfully old in mind; and was
so used to grumbling and snarling, that she could do it very rapidly.

"Oh," said Tip to himself, drawing a long breath, "what a place for me to
commence in!" Then he came bravely to Kitty's aid.

"See here, Kitty, don't make such a rattling; you'll wake father. I can
make this fire in a hurry. I have made one out of next to nothing, lots
of times; you just put some water in the tea-kettle, and we'll have a cup
of tea in a jiff."

Kitty stood still in her astonishment, and watched him while he took out
the round green sticks that she had put in, laid in bits of dry paper and
bits of sticks,--laid them in such a careless, uneven way, that it seemed
to her they would never burn in the world; only he speedily proved that
they would, by setting fire to the whole, and they crackled and snapped
in a most determined manner, and finally roared outright.

Certainly Kitty had never been so much astonished in her life. First,
because that rubbish in the stove had been made to become such a positive
fire; secondly, that Tip had actually set to work without being coaxed or
scolded, and made a fire!

There was a queer, new feeling about it all to Tip himself; for, strange
as it may seem, so entirely selfish had been this boy's life, that this
was actually the first time he had ever, of his own free will, done