“I am so tired of singing!” pleaded Hannah. “I don’t know many songs, and I sing them so very often! Won’t that bird do as well? Let me get down the cage, may I?” “Yes, do, and we will give him some water, poor fellow! He is my bird and I feed him every day. Somebody that could not afford to keep him sold him to father, and father gave him to me. Had you ever a bird?” “No, but I had a monkey once. When we went away, father got a monkey, and I used to lead him about with a string; but I was glad when we had done with him, he was so mischievous. Look here how he tore my arm one day, when somebody had put him in a passion with giving him empty nutshells.” “What a terrible place!” said Martha. “Was it long in getting well?” “No; father got an apothecary to tie it up, and it soon got well.” “My father is going to show my knees to Mr. Dawson, the apothecary. Do look how they are swelled; and they ache so, you can’t think.” “O, but I can think, for mine used to ache terribly when I walked and stood before the wheels all day.” “But yours were never so bad as mine, or I am sure you could not dance about as you do.” “Not so bad, to be sure, and my arms were never so shrunk away as yours. Look, my arm is twice as big as yours.” “I wonder what’s the reason,” sighed Martha. “Mother says I get thinner and thinner.” “You should have meat for dinner every day as I have,” said Hannah, “and then you would grow fat like me. Father gets such good dinners for us to what we used to have. He says ’tis that, and being in the air so much that prevents my being sickly, as I used to be. I don’t think I could do the work that I used to do with all that noise, and the smell of oil and the heat.” “And I am sure I could not sing and dance as you do.” “No, how should you dance when you are so lame?” “And I don’t think I can sing at all.” “Come, try, and I will sing with you. Try ‘God save the king.’” “It is Sunday,” said Martha gravely. “Well, I thought people might sing ‘God save the king’ on Sundays. I have heard father play it on the drum, just before the Old Hundred. You know the Old Hundred.” Martha had heard this hymn-tune at church, and she tried to sing it; but Hannah burst out a laughing. “Lord! Martha, your voice is like a little twittering bird’s. Can’t you open your mouth and sing this way?” “No, I can’t,” said Martha, quite out of breath; “and besides, Hannah, you should not say ‘Lord!’ Father and mother never let us say those sort of words.” “Nor my father either. He is more angry with me for that, than for anything; but it slips out somehow, and you would not wonder if you knew how often I hear people say that, and many worse things.” “Worse things?” said Martha, looking curious. “Yes; much worse things; but I am not going to tell you what they are, because father made me promise not to tell you about any of the bad people that I have heard swear and seen tipsy. Was your father ever tipsy?”