Page:Stories told to a child.djvu/192

 his lap, and he was stitching away at it with all his might.

'Good morning, mistress!' said the little man. 'A very fine day. Why may you be looking so earnestly across the common?'

'I was looking at my neighbor's cottage,' said the young woman.

'What! Tom, the gardener's wife?—little Polly, she used to be called; and a very pretty cottage it is, too! Looks thriving, doesn't it?'

'She was always lucky,' said Bella (for that was the young wife's name); 'and her husband is always good to her.'

'They were both good husbands at first,' interrupted the little cobbler, without stopping. 'Reach me my awl, mistress, will you, for you seem to have nothing to do: it lies close by your foot.'

'Well, I can't say but they were both very good husbands at first,' replied Bella, reaching the awl with a sigh; 'but mine has changed for the worse, and hers for the better; and then, look how she thrives. Only to think of our both being married on the same day; and now I've nothing, and she has two pigs, and a'—

'And a lot of flax that she spun in the winter,' interrupted the cobbler; 'and a Sunday gown, as good green stuff as ever was seen, and, to my knowledge, a handsome silk handkerchief for an apron; and a red waistcoat for her goodman, with three rows of blue glass buttons, and a flitch of bacon in the chimney, and a rope of onions.'

'O, she's a lucky woman!' exclaimed Bella.

'Ay, and a tea-tray, with Daniel in the lion's den Rh