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Mann, Mary E., -1929

"Mrs. Day's Daughters"

"I want some more tea,
mother. I won't have this her sopping handkerchief fell in. All her beastly
tears in my cup!"
"Deleah must pour it out for you," the mother said, and closed the door
behind herself and her daughter.
"I won't be called an ass by Bernard! I won't be made fun of by them all!"
Bessie cried. "You should go back, and punish them, mama."
Mrs. Day, murmuring words of soothing, led her to the foot of the stairs,
and watched the girl mounting slowly to her room, crying audibly, childish
fashion, as she went. "You must try to have more self-control," she said.
"But why did papa look at me in such a horrible manner?"
"You know what your father is, Bessie. So often irritable at home when
things have gone wrong at the office. Go to your room till your tears are
dry; I will see your father and find out if there is anything to tell you."
Mr. Day was in the room they called the breakfast-room. Looking upon it
with the housewife's desire for neatness Mrs. Day often spoke of it as the
Pig-sty, but it was the room they all of them loved best in the house. It
was here the children learned their lessons for school, the ladies worked,
Franky played. It was spacious and cheerful, and held nothing that rough
usage would spoil.


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