Such folks as I've got! I'm sick of living." And Mrs.Lewis stepped back from the steaming tea-kettle, and wiped great beads of perspiration from her forehead; then fanned herself with her big apron, looking meantime very tired and cross.
Yet Tip's mother was not so cross after all as she seemed; had Tip only known it, her heart was very heavy that morning.

She did not blame his father for his morning nap, not a bit of it; she was only glad that the weary frame could rest a little after a night of pain.

She had been up since the first grey dawn of morning, bathing his head, straightening the tangled bedclothes, walking the floor with the restless baby, in order that her husband might have quiet.

Oh no; there were worse women in the world than Mrs.Lewis; but this morning her life looked very wretched to her.

She thought of her idle, mischievous boy; of her naughty, high-tempered little girl; of her fat, healthy baby, who took so much of her time; of her husband, who, though she never said it to him, or even to herself, yet she knew and felt was every day growing weaker; and with these came the remembrance that her own tired hands were all that lay between them and want; and it is hardly a wonder that her voice was sharp and her words ill chosen.