"It is sugar--sugar in my coffee. I'll drink my coffee without sugar till that sixty dollars is made up. I'll never touch sugar again till that money is made good--never!" and into the kitchen sailed Mrs. Lively with her pan of dishes. "Sugar, please," demanded Napoleon the next morning at the breakfast-table. Dr. Lively passed over the sugar-bowl. "How can you have the heart to take so much?" said the mother, watching Napoleon as he emptied one heaping spoonful and then another into his coffee-cup. "But I might have known you'd leave your mother to bear the burden all alone. All the economizing, all the self-denial, must come on my shoulders. And just look at me!--nothing but skin and bones. I've got to make up everybody's losses, everybody's wasting. It's a rare thing if I get a warm meal with the rest of you: I'm all the while eating up the cold victuals and scraps and burnt things that nobody else will eat." "I'd eat 'em," said Napoleon. "Of course you'd eat them. There's nothing you wouldn't eat, in the heavens above or the earth beneath. And all the thanks I get is to be taunted with stinginess." "Take some?" asked Napoleon, passing the sugar-bowl to his mother. "Never!" she exclaimed, drawing back as though a viper had been extended to her. "Take the thing away--set it down there by your father's plate. I said I'd use no more sugar till that money was made good. When I say a thing I mean it." "Now, Priscilla," remonstrated the doctor, "what is the use of breaking in on your lifelong habits? You'll make yourself sick, that's all." "Dr. Lively, you're trying to tempt me: why can't you uphold me? It will be hard enough at best to make the sacrifice. Yes, I shall make myself sick, but it won't hurt anybody but me. I can get well again, as I've always had to." "Perhaps so, after a druggist's bill and hired girl's wages. Every spoonful of sugar you save may cost you ten dollars." "Then, why don't you give up that vile tobacco? I won't use any sugar till you do. All you care about is the money my sickness will cost--my suffering is nothing." Mrs. Lively raised her cup to her lip, then set it back in the saucer with a haste that sent the contents splashing over the sides. "Bitter?" asked Napoleon. "Bitter! of course it's bitter--bitter as tansy. It sends the chills creeping up and down my backbone, and the top of my head feels as if it was crawling off. I believe I shall lose my scalp if I don't use sugar." "To stick it on?" asked Napoleon with a stolid face. "Oh, it's beautiful in my only child to laugh at a mother's discomfort!" "Ain't a-laughin'," he replied. "What are you doing if you ain't laughing?" "Eatin'." "Of course: you're always eating." Again Mrs. Lively essayed her coffee, but fell back in her chair with an unutterable look. "Oh, I can't!--I cannot do it!" she exclaimed. "Don't," Napoleon advised.