her after a few minutes' thought.

"Where shall I begin? I'm not afraid of a dozen crocodiles after
Miss Bat;" and Molly Loo looked about her with a fierce air,
having had practice in battles with the old lady who kept her
father's house.

"Well, dear, you haven't far to look for as nice a little heathen as
you'd wish;" and Mrs. Pecq glanced at Boo, who sat on the floor
staring hard at them, attracted by the dread word "crocodile." He
had a cold and no handkerchief, his little hands were red with
chilblains, his clothes shabby, he had untidy darns in the knees of
his stockings, and a head of tight curls that evidently had not been
combed for some time.

"Yes, I know he is, and I try to keep him decent, but I forget, and
he hates to be fixed, and Miss Bat doesn't care, and father laughs
when I talk about it."

Poor Molly Loo looked much ashamed as she made excuses, trying
at the same time to mend matters by seizing Boo and dusting him
all over with her handkerchief, giving a pull at his hair as if ringing
bells, and then dumping him down again with the despairing
exclamation: "Yes, we're a pair of heathens, and there's no one to
save us if I don't."

That was true enough; for Molly's father was a busy man, careless
of everything but his mills, Miss Bat was old and lazy, and felt as
if she might take life easy after serving the motherless children for
many years as well as she knew how. Molly was beginning to see