Her mother was a young, flighty, careless girl, and she didn't look after her baby as she should have done.

That is all you need know, Hilda, my dear! Poor Susan Chirk! it took the flightiness out of her, and made her the anxious, melancholy soul she has been ever since.

Then Bubble was born, and soon after her husband died, and since then she has had a hard time to fend for herself.

But Pink has never been any trouble to her, only a help and a comfort; and her neighbors have done what they could from time to time." Dame Hartley might have said that she and her husband had kept this desolate widow and her children from starvation through many a long winter, and had given her the means of earning her daily bread in summer; had clothed the children, and provided comforts for the crippled girl.

But this was not Nurse Lucy's way.