erhaps you
were not feeling well to-day. I have not heard you singing at your
work, and the washing seems to have gone slowly. You must be very
careful of your health, and not overdo your strength."

While she was speaking, Mrs. Watson's eyes were busy with the room, the
pictures on the wall, the cosey window-seat with its numerous cushions;
the warmth and brightness of it all brought a glow to her tired face.

"Yes, ma'am," she said, "thank ye kindly, ma'am. It is very kind of ye
to be thinkin' o' the likes of me."

"Oh, we should always think of others, you know," Mrs. Francis replied
quickly with her most winning smile, as she seated herself in a
rocking-chair. "Are the children all well? Dear little Danny, how is
he?"

"Indade, ma'am, that same Danny is the upsettinest one of the nine, and
him only four come March. It was only this morn's mornin' that he sez
to me, sez he, as I was comin' away, 'Ma, d'ye think she'll give ye pie
for your dinner? Thry and remimber the taste of it, won't ye ma, and
tell us when ye come home,' sez he."

"Oh, the sweet prattle of childhood," said Mrs. Francis, clasping her
shapely white hands. "How very interesting it must be to watch their
young minds unfolding as the flower! Is it nine little ones you have,
Mrs. Watson?"

"Yes, nine it is, ma'am. God save us. Teddy will be fourteen on St.
Patrick's Day, and all the rest are younger."

"It is a great responsibility to be a mother, and yet how few there be
that think of it," added Mrs. Francis, dreamily.

"Thrue for ye ma'am," Mrs. Watson broke in. "There's my own man, John
Watson. That man knows no more of what it manes than you do yerself
that hasn't one at all at all, the Lord be praised; and him the father
of nine."

"I have just been reading a great book by Dr. Ernestus Parker, on
'Motherhood.' It would be a great benefit to both you and your husband."

"Och, ma'am," Mrs. Watson broke in, hastily, "John is no hand for books
and has always had his suspicions o' them since his own mother's
great-uncle William Mulcahey got himself transported durin' life or
good behaviour for havin' one found on him no bigger'n an almanac, at
the time of the riots in Ireland. No, ma'am, John wouldn't rade it at
all at all, and he don't know one letther from another, what's more."

"Then if you would read it and explain it to him, it would be so
helpful to you both, and so inspiring. It deals so ably with the
problems of child-training. Y