Page:Goody Two Shoes-1874.djvu/6

2 was in great trouble when the time came for her brother to start, and wept bitterly. But Tommy, in order to comfort her, promised he would not fail to come back to see her, when he should return from foreign countries.

After he was gone, Margery began to recover her usual cheerfulness: but what helped greatly to put her into good spirits, was the pleasure she took in her new shoes. As soon as the old hoemaker brought them, she put them on, and ran at once to the clergyman's wife, crying out with glee, as she pointed to them, "Two shoes, ma'am! See, Two shoes!" These words she kept on repeating to everybody she met, and so came to be called Goody Two Shoes.

Now Margery was a thoughtful little girl, and was most anxious to learn to read and write. When Mr. Goodall saw this, he kindly taught her what she most wished to know, and in a short time she became a better scholar than any of the children who went to the village school. As soon as she found that this was the case, she thought she would try to teach such poor children as could not go to school. Now, as very few books were then printed, she thought she could get over the difficulty by cutting, out of wood, six sets of capital letters like these:—

And ten sets of these common letters: —

When, after much pains and trouble, she had finished all these wooden letters, she managed to borrow an old spelling-book, and, with the help of this, she made her playmates set up the words she wished them to spell.

One day, as Margery was coming home from the next village,