Excuse my dress, Madame Pratolungo.

How _am_ I to dress, with all I have got to do?
What do you say?
My time must indeed be fully occupied?
Ah, that's just where it is! When you have lost half an hour in the morning, and can't pick it up again--to say nothing of having the store-room on your mind, and the children's dinner late, and the baby fractious--one slips on a petticoat and a shawl, and gives it up in despair.

What _can_ I have done with my handkerchief?
Would you mind looking among those bottles behind you?
Oh, here it is, under the baby.
Might I trouble you to hold my book for one moment?
I think the baby will be quieter if I put him the other way." Here Mrs.Finch turned the baby over on his stomach, and patted him briskly on the back.

At this change in his circumstances, the unappeasable infant only roared louder than ever.

His mother appeared to be perfectly unaffected by the noise.