J. COLE. 11

‘Got any snow sugar? I mean all done fine
like snow.’ I gave it him; and, sure enough,
his little hands moved that quick, he had
made the lemonade before Mary would have
squeezed a lemon. ‘Where do yer buy the
cream?’ he says next. ‘Ill run and get it
while you picks the strawberries.’ Perhaps
it wasn’t right, me a trustin’ him, being a
stranger, but he was that quick I couldn’t say
no. Up he takes the jug, and was off; and
when I come in from the garden with the
strawberries, if he hadn’t been and put all
them flowers on the things. He begs my
pardon for interfering like, and says, ‘I ’ope
you'll excuse me a-doin’ of it, but the woman
at the milk-shop said I might ’ave ’em; and
I see the butler where Dick lives wind the
flowers about like that, and ’ave ’elped ‘im
often; and, please, I paid for the cream, be-
cause I’d got two bob of my own, Dick giv’
me on my birthday. Oh, I do ’ope, Mrs.
Cook,’ he says, ‘that the lady’ll take me; I ’Il
serve ’er well, I will, indeed;’ and then he
begins to cry and tremble, poor little chap, for
he’d been running about a lot, and never eaten