from the tea urn, when I missed the plate of
sausages, about which I had boasted to my lady friends as something
a little better than were usually to be obtained. So I rung the
table bell. Alice presently made her appearance.

"Alice," said I, "where are the sausages I told you to cook? You
surely hav'nt forgotten them?"

"Och, no indade, mum. They're there."

"Where? I don't see them."

And my eyes ran around the table.

"They're wid the ta mum, sure!"

"With the tea?"

"Sure, mum, they're wid the ta. Ye towld me yees wanted the sausages
wid the ta; and sure they're there. I biled 'em well."

A light now flashed over my mind. Throwing up the lid of the tea
urn, I thrust in a fork, which immediately came in contact with a
hard substance. I drew it forth, and exhibited a single link of a
well "biled" sausage.

Let me draw a veil over what followed.

CHAPTER XIV.

NOT A RAG ON THEIR BACKS.

THERE are, among the many things which Mr. Smith, like other men,
will _not_ understand, frequent difficulties about the children's
clothing. He seems to think that frocks and trowsers grow
spontaneously; or that the dry goods, once bought and brought into
the house, will resolve into the shapes desired, and fit themselves
to the children's backs, like Cindarella's suit in the nursery tale.
Now, I never did claim to be a sprite; and I am not sure that the
experience of all housekeepers will bear me out in the opinion that
the longer a woman is married, the less she becomes like a fairy.

Stitch! stitch! stitch! Hood's Song of the Shirt, which every body
has heard and admired, is certainly most eloquent and pathetic upon
the sufferings and difficulties of sewing girls. "Much yet remains
unsung," particularly in regard to the ceaseless labors of women who
are as rich as Cornelia in muslin-rending, habit-cloth-destroying,
children's-plaid-rubbing--jewels! I am sure that the Roman matron
never went shopping. I am sure that she did not undertake to keep
her own children's clothing in repair; for if she had, she could not
have been ready, at a moment's warning, to put forward her
troublesome charge as specimen jewels. Do all I can, my little
comforts never _are_ "fit to be seen!"

Many is the weary evening that I have been occupied, past the noon
of night, in repairing the wear and tear of habiliments--abridging
the volume of the elder children's clothes into narrow dimensions
for the next, or compiling a suit for