WHITTINGTON AND HIS CAT
7
cruelly; and added, she would certainly be turned away if she did not treat him with more kindness.
But thongh the cook was so ill-tempered, Mr. Fitzwarren's footman was qnite the contrary: he had lived in the family many years, was rather elderly, and had once a little boy of liis own, who died when about the age of Whittington; so he could not but feel compassion for the poor boy.
As the footman was very fond of reading, he used generally in the evening to entertain his fellow-servants, when they had done their work, with some amusing book. The pleasure our little hero took in hearing him made him very much desire to learn to read too; so the next time the good-natured fontman gave him a halfpenny, he bought a hornbook with it; and, with a little of his help, Dick soon learned his letters, and afterwards to read.
About this time, Miss Alice was going out one morning for a walk; and the footman happening to be out of the way, little Dick, who had received from Mr. Fitzwarren a neat suit of clothes, to go to church on Sundays, was ordered to put them on, and walk behind her. As they walked along, Miss Alice, seeing a poor woman with one child in her arms, and another at her back, pulled out her purse, and gave her some money; and as she was putting it again into her pocket, she dropped it on the ground, and walked on. Luckily Dick, who was
