One was a little girl who was really about Milly's age, though she looked much younger, and the other was a very shy small boy, with blue eyes and straggling yellow hair, and a face that might have been pretty if you could have seen it properly.

But Charlie seemed to have made up his mind that nobody ever should see it properly.

However often his mother might wash him, and she was a tidy woman, who liked to see her children look clean and nice, Charlie was always black.

His face was black, his hands were black, his pinafore was sure to be covered with black marks ten minutes after he had put it on.

Do what you would to him, it was no use, Charlie always looked as if he had just come out of the coal-hole.
"Well, Bessie," said Mrs.Norton to the little girl, "is your mother in ?" "Naw," said Bessie, without taking her fingers out of her mouth.
"Oh, I'm sorry for that.