m and Jem were both older than Bessy, and she was fifteen. Then came
Bill and Mary and little Jenny. They were all good children, and all had
faults. Tom and Jem helped to support the family by their earnings at
the factory, and gave up their wages very cheerfully for this purpose,
to their mother, who, however, insisted on a little being put by every
week in the savings' bank. It was one of her griefs now that, when the
doctor ordered her some expensive delicacy in the way of diet during her
illness (a thing which she persisted in thinking she could have done
without), her boys had gone and taken their money out in order to
procure it for her. The article in question did not cost one quarter
of the amount of their savings, but they had put off returning the
remainder into the bank, saying the doctor's bill had yet to be paid,
and that it seemed so silly to be always taking money in and out. But
meanwhile Mrs. Lee feared lest it should be spent, and begged them to
restore it to the savings' bank. This had not been done when she left
for Southport. Bill and Mary went to school. Little Jenny was the
darling of all, and toddled about at home, having been her sister
Bessy's especial charge when all went on well, and the mother used to
go out to wash.

Mrs. Lee, however, had always made a point of giving all her children
who were at home a comfortable breakfast at seven, before she set out
to her day's work; and she prepared the boys' dinner ready for Bessy
to warm for them. At night, too, she was anxious to be at home as soon
after her boys as she could; and many of her employers respected her
wish, and, finding her hard-working and conscientious, took care to set
her at liberty early in the evening.

Bessy felt very proud and womanly when she returned home from seeing
her mother off by the railway. She looked round the house with a new
feeling of proprietorship, and then went to claim little Jenny from the
neighbour's where she had been left while Bessy had gone to the station.
They asked her to stay and have a bit of chat; but she replied that she
could not, for that it was near dinner-time, and she refused the
invitation that was then given her to go in some evening. She was full
of good plans and resolutions.

That afternoon she took Jenny and went to her teacher's to borrow a
book, which she meant to ask one of her brothers to read to her in the
evenings while she worked. She knew that it was a book which Jem would