Her hair was coal black and hung down uncombed and unfastened, just anyhow. It was not very long, but it was very shiny, and it seemed to match her bright black eyes and dark freckled skin. On her feet were coarse gray stockings and thick shabby boots, which she had evidently forgotten to lace up. She had something hidden away under her shawl, but the children did not know what it was. At first they thought it was a baby, but when, on seeing them coming towards her, she carefully put it under her and sat upon it, they thought they must be mistaken. She sat watching the children approach, and did not move or stir till they were within a yard of her; then she wiped her eyes just as if she had been crying bitterly, and looked up.

The children stood still in front of her for a moment, staring at her and wondering what they ought to do.

“Are you crying?” they asked shyly.

To their surprise she said in a most cheerful voice, “Oh dear, no! Quite the contrary. Are you?” They thought it rather rude of her to reply in this way, for any one could see that they were not crying. They felt half in mind to walk away; but the girl looked at them so hard with her big black eyes, they did not like to do so till they had said something else.

“Perhaps you have lost yourself?” they said gently.

But the girl answered promptly, “Certainly not. Why, you have just found me. Besides,” she added, “I live in the village.”

The children were surprised at this, for they had never seen her before, and yet they thought they knew all the village folk by sight.

“We often go to the village,” they said, thinking it might interest her.

“Indeed,” she answered. That was all; and again they wondered what to do.

Then the Turkey, who had an inquiring mind, put a good straightforward question. “What are you sitting on?” she asked.

“On a peardrum,” the girl answered, still speaking in a most cheerful voice, at which the children wondered, for she looked very cold and uncomfortable.

“What is a peardrum?” they asked.

“I am surprised at your not knowing,” the girl answered. “Most people in good society have one.” And then she pulled it out and showed it to them. It was a curious instrument, a good deal like a guitar in shape; it had three strings, but only two pegs by which to tune them. The third string was never tuned at all, and thus added to the singular effect produced by the village girl’s music. And yet, oddly, the peardrum was not played by touching its strings, but by turning a little handle cunningly hidden on one side.

But the strange thing about the peardrum was not the music it made, or the strings, or the handle, but a little square box attached to one side. The box had a little flat lid that appeared to open by a spring. That was all the children could make out at first. They were most anxious to see inside the box, or to know what it contained, but they thought it might look curious to say so.

“It really is a most beautiful thing, is a peardrum,” the girl said, looking at it, and speaking in a voice that was almost affectionate.

“Where did you get it?” the children asked.

“I bought it,” the girl answered.

“Didn’t it cost a great deal of money?” they asked.

“Yes,” answered the girl slowly, nodding her head, “it cost a great deal of money. I am very rich,” she added.

And this the children thought a really remarkable statement, for they had not supposed that rich people dressed in old clothes, or went about without bonnets. She might at least have done her hair, they thought; but they did not like to say so.

“You don’t look rich,” they said slowly, and in as polite a voice as possible.

“Perhaps not,” the girl answered cheerfully.

At this the children gathered courage, and ventured to remark, “You look rather shabby” — they did not like to say ragged.

“Indeed?” said the girl in the voice of one who had heard a pleasant but surprising statement. “A little shabbiness is very respectable,” she added in a satisfied voice. “I must really tell them this,” she continued. And the children wondered what she meant. She opened the little box by the side of the peardrum, and said, just as if she were speaking to someone who could hear her, “They say I look rather shabby; it is quite lucky, isn’t it?”

“Why, you are not speaking to any one!” they said, more surprised than ever.

“Oh dear, yes! I am speaking to them both.”

“Both?” they said, wondering.

“Yes. I have here a little man dressed as a peasant, and wearing a wide slouch hat with a large feather, and a little woman to match, dressed in a red petticoat, and a white handkerchief pinned across her bosom. I put them on the lid of the box, and when I play they dance most beautifully. The little man takes off his hat and waves it in the air, and the little woman holds up her petticoat a little bit on one side with one hand, and with the other sends forward a kiss.”

“Oh! Let us see; do let us see!” the children cried, both at once.

Then the village girl looked at them doubtfully.

“Let you see!” she said slowly. “Well, I am not sure that I can. Tell me, are you good?”

“Yes, yes,” they answered eagerly, “we are very good!”

“Then it’s quite impossible,” she answered, and resolutely closed the lid of the box.

They stared at her in astonishment.

“But we are good,” they cried, thinking she must have misunderstood them.