Saved by Love by Emma Leslie

FROM this time Elfie began to pay some attention to her personal appearance. She washed her face and hands, and combed her hair every morning, before she went out, and, of course, looked less wild; but her rags, poor child, were past mending, and there seemed no hope of ever being able to replace these with better clothes now. New ones-new frocks, new shoes, that gave other little girls so much pleasure-Elfie had never had. Sometimes she wore a pair of old shoes or boots picked up in the street, and sometimes she went barefoot. And it was much the same with frocks and bonnets: sometimes she picked up a rag that would cover her, or had one given her, and she wore it until it dropped to pieces. She had never been quite naked; but many times she had been almost so, until some one had given her something to put on.

She began to wish now that some one would do so again; and formed all sorts of plans for saving enough money to buy herself a frock at a second-hand clothes' stall-plans that always failed, for winter was drawing near, and the two girls found it harder work than ever to pay the rent and buy bread to eat.