THAT OLD CLO' WOMAN!

I shall be out next time she calls. I shall have to be out, if I want to keep anything at all in the héwae, for I am powerless against that Old Clothes Women. She is fat and cheerful, and her beaming smile as she peeps at my baby in the front garden and exclaims: “Bless him! Isn't he lovely!" knocks down my defences at once, and before I know it she is inside, "Now I know you've got some frocks to sell, my dear," she says insinuatingly, and I admit that there might be one or two old ones. "lind me something of the children's while you are looking," she calls after me. “I'll give you the best price I can." I turn out shabby jerseys and knickers that the boys have discarded but the pile is small and she says, disappointedly: "You can find me a bit more than that,dearie.” 

“I’m putting the best aside for baby," I protest, but she waves that aside airily. 

“Him, my dear? You don't want to keep things for him! Why, he'll be a the size of the others when he's grown. Look how he's coming on == the beauty!" I

 admit that she may be right and she assures me that she is, with compliments about the smallest one sufficient to turn any mother's head. The pile grows larger by the respectable “out growns", and her eye roves round the room. "Don't your now curtains look nice?" she sdys, admiringly, “make such a difference to the room. You won't be wanting the old ones now."

Did I want them? I had meant them for the kitchen, but she is a too strong for me and out they come. "hnd a few old sheets?" she wheedles. “I've a customer who asked me specially for old sheets. Six children she's got, my dear, an all down with the measles; You know what it is, With Little ones in bed" 

“I do know, and I had meant to keep my sheets for my own emergencies, but she gets them just the same. 

“Now if you can find a bit of paper and string?" and, armed with three gigantic parcels, she heams her way gut, dropping a final "Bless hims" on the baby as she goes. 

As I count the few shillings she has left in my hand and set them against the things she has taken, I register again that vow I have so often broken: 

Next time she comes I shall be out!"