YOUNG FOLKS' CORNER.

wienie's Little Bare Feet. On a cold winter , day, when the bitter north wind made even well fed and warmly clothed passers-by hurry along— 1 when ladies, though clad in furs, looked pinched and blue in the face, and men, despite being buttoned up to the chin, felfthat it was cold enough to render a fall of snow very probable — a little girl, about eight years old, stood with a hungry look at a pastrycook's window in Piccadilly. She was scantily clad* had neither shoes : nor stockings*, and her head had no protection but its own natural covering of soft, silky hair. Her thin cotton frock was so short as barely to cover the knee, leaving the poor, little, naked limbs exposed to the cutting blast. Yet the child was clean and tidy ; and an attentive

feminine observer might have remarked a most creditable darn on the faded calico frock, while a rent in the pinafore was so neatly mended as to be almost ornamental .^ With all these disadvantages of attire, she had still a noble bearing, this poor little one ; and though she shivered with the cold,, her foot : was firmly planted on the ground, and her whole figure and deportment were indicative of something far better than her wretched clothing would have led one to expect. More than one benevolent individual looked at the child, and passed by. Mendicancy and vagrancy must not be encouraged ; the heart may bleed for the needy; but the hand must, it is said, under such circumstances, refrain from giving. A young man with a brown moustache, no whiskers, and his hair worn somewhat longer than is usual with men, attracted by the child's appearance, stopped, and took a deliberate survey of her. She was pretty, but her face being turned towards the window, was only imperfectly seen. The young man's eye, however, rested with delight on the naked foot and limb, which were exquisitely moulded, and had not yet quite lost a certain childish roundness. " Delicious little toes !" remarked the gentleman to himself as he advanced towards the child. "Aren't you cold, my deal*, standing here?" he asked her. " Yes, sir," was the reply, as she turned her face to her interrogator. " You are looking at the buns. Would you like a penny to buy one ?" " No, thank ye, sir," said the little girl, dropping her eyes. • " Why, won't you take a penny from me ? Do you mean to say you couldn't eat one of those nice cakes ?" The child looked at the coin temptingly held out to her, and with a face of dis-. tress hung her head, and made no reply. " Are you not hungry ?" asked the young man, stooping towards her. "If ye please, sir, dinna ask me. Mother says I'm no' to tell when I'm hungry." " But your mother means that you are not to tell without being asked," was the reply. The child shook her head, as if unconvinced by this argument. " Mother's most awfu' feared for me learning to beg. .Beggin's next to stealin', and takin' money ye dinna work for 's next to beggin' ; an' I'm to work a' my life for everything I put in my mouth or on my back." " Your mother is an excellent woman," he said, more to himself, however, than to •the child ; but she heard him, and looked up in his face with a bright smile. " What does your father do for a living ?" asked the young man, regarding with compassion the shivering little creature before him. "He's dead, sir." " What does your mother work at, then." " She was a laundress, sir ; but she's ill, an' no' able to do anything." " Oh, bless my soul !" ejaculated the young man in an under- tone ; " this is a "dreadful state of matters." Then addressing the child, " What is your name, my dear ?" he inquired. " Menie Broun," she replied. " Broun is Scotch for Brown, I suppose, and the prettier name of the two. Well, I then, Menie, if you must work for your living, I'll give you work." " Me, sir ! will you gie work to me ? I'm real strong, though I'm wee ; an' I can scrub an' wash," said Menie, eagerly. " Poor little mite ! Then come along with me." j Turning out of Piccadilly into a street of much humbler pretensions, he led her to a cook-shop ; but stopped on the j threshold to say — " Now, Menie, I am going to give you your dinner, and you'll work for it afterwards. Will that do ?" " I would rather work for it first, sir." "Come along, then, and you shall. I won't force you to deviate from the honorable course your mother wishes you to pursue. Have you any brothers and sisters, Menie ?" "No, sir." " It's almost a pity," returned he. " Your mother ought to have had a very large family, to furnish the world with j honest men and women." " But hoo could she ha' fed them, sir ?" " That would have been a difficult task, I have no doubt," he replied. As they thus conversed, Menie was led by her companion into a street of unpretending appearance ; then stopping at the door of one of the houses, he knocked, and was admitted ; and the child followed him up to a bright, cheerful room, with two long windows, the lower halves of which were covered with green baize. " Now come to the fire and warm yourself, dear, for you must be more dead than alive this bitter cold day. Stay, let me rub your hands for you ; and as for those poor little, blue feet, do they ever suffer from chilblains ?" " Whiles," replied Menie, looking about the room with some degree of wonder, for . it was filled with things she had never seen before, and of which she did not know the use. A half-finished picture on an easel, some, half-finished pictures on the floor, a lay figure, a palette, some paint-brushes, and many other such articles, attracted her attention. "Now, Menie, xre must come to business," said the young man, dropping, as he spoke, the well-shaped little hand which he rubbed into pome degree of heat. " I shall tell you what work I want you to do. lam a painter ; my business . is to make pictures, and I wish to put you in a picture, and will, require you to sit before me some time every day. I'll ' pay you so much an hour." : " But that's no, work,"' urged Menie! , " I couldna take money for sitting still and doing nothing." " What an independent little article you are ! This is work. It is a trade, 1 Menie."

" To sit still and be drawn in a picter ? That's no work. My mother would never believe 't." " But you arc useful to me, my child — nay, necessary. It may not be work Lo sit still and be drawn, as you express it. ; but your doing so enables me to earn money." " But I'll sit as long as you like for nothing," said Meuie, with a radiant face. " Oh, yes ; that's all very well," said the artist, turning away his head as if Uo were offended. "' You'll keep your independence, but you don't care for mine You'll let me grow up a beggar. My mother told me it was wrong to take anything for nothing from a man, worse to take anything for nothing from a woman, but worst of all, and mean, and base, and despicable, to take things for nothing from little girls." Here Menie's face assumed a look of intelligence and drollery. " You're making it \ip, I know it," she said, pointing her forefinger towards him, and fixing her eyes, which were full of fun, upon his face. " It's all made up out of your own head, that. Your mother never spoke about little girls." " Well, Menie," returned the young man, laughing, "if I have learned .the lesson, what matter who taught it to me ? although mother may be used ns a general term comprising all the lessons of childhood. But to return to the chief point. What am I to do ? I have set my heart on having you for my picture. I cannot accept your services for nothing. It would be the same as begging for me to do that." " I'll take money, then," said Minnie. " Grood. I'll give you, then, threepence an hour, and when the picture is sold ten per cent. That is, if I get L 100; you , would get LlO ; if I get LSO, you would get L 5. " Five 'pounds ! Oh, what an awfu' lot o' money !" " But the picture may not sell at all, Menie, or I may get very little for it." As he spoke the artist prepared his canvas, while Menie's imagination dwelt on the quantities of soup, tea, wine, eggs, roast beef, and other dainties, which L 5 would purchase for her sick mother. " You shall only sit half an hour at present, Menie, and I'll give you your money, and you'll go and get your dinner, and come back to me." " But I would like to take the money home to my mother." " My child, you must eat, or you will not be worth painting. I want a nice fat little girl for my picture — not one with a lean and starved look." Satisfied with this argument, Menie, hungry as she was, began to consider how she should spend her three-halfpence, when, happening to look down at her bare feet, she exclaimed — « Oh, sir " " My name's Hayward, Menie.'' interrupted the artist. " Oh, Mr Hayward, I had a pair o' red stockin's an' boots wi' brass rings, an' they're at the pawnbrokers. If I had them, wouldn't they be bonnie in the picter ?" "So far as that is concerned, I could put in the red stockings and boots with brass rings, although you did not wear them," was the reply. " But it wouldua he true, it would be makin' folk believe I have what I havena." " What a truthful little thing you are ! I have a great respect for the mother, Menie, who has trained you so well. Will you take me to see her?" The child bashfully bent her eyes on the carpet, and was silent. "You don't seem to care about taking me ?" said the artist. " We're sac poor, an' mother thinks shame," she returned. " Pardon me, Menie, I was an ungentlemanly fellow to push you into a corner in this way ; but you must go now, and get your dinner." And he' put three-halfpence into the child's hand, saying, " Do you know what to buy ?" " Yes ; baked potatoes an' butter," she replied promptly. "That's right. Get something hot, and come back to me when you have dined." " So Menie ran off, quickly purchased, and ate her potatoes with a keen appetite, and soon returned to her post. "Would you draw up your petticoat a little bit, Menie, to give me just the least thing in the world more of Ihe leg?" asked Mr Hayward. But the child turned away her head with an offended expression. " A very little higher would be sufficient. Allow me, my child, to show you how much, or rather how little," said the artist, rising and advancing towards her. " jSTo," cried she, with starting tears ; " I think shame." " Very well," said Mr Hayward, returning to his seat, and smiling at this curious Scotch idiom, " I yield to you on this point also ; but it would have been a prettier picture with a little more of the leg, and would have sold more quickly and brought a larger price." Menie thought of her sick mother, who required wine and nourishing food, and of the ten per cent, she was to , get, and putting down her hand, drew up her petticoat just a hair's breadth ; but the artist did not immediately observe her action. " Mr Hayward, I'm pulling 't up," she remarked shyly, while her face became very red. There was no more of the limb seen than there had been before, but the conflict between modesty and filial affection was so touchingly expressed in the face and. attitude that , it struck the artist that this in itself would make a good picture. . < r'. " You are a dear, obliging, little soul. Just hold it up as'you are doing," he said, "and unless I nm a very stupid fellow, it cannot fail to be a nice picture."