Mrs. Dicki’son was a good deal younger than her husband--a pretty, weak, sentimental woman, rather gushing in disposition, and very injudicious. She was always overwhelmed with troubles and babies; although, as a matter of fact, she had but six children altogether, and one of them died while still an infant. Gerty was twelve years old, and Ada Elizabeth just a year younger; then came a gap of two years ere a boy, William Thomas, was born. William Thomas, if he had lived, would, I fancy, have inherited his father’s reserved disposition, for, I must say, a more taciturn babe it has never at any time been my lot to encounter. He was a dreadful trouble to his dissatisfied mother, who felt, and said, that there was something uncanny about a child who objected to nothing--who seemed to know no difference between his own thumb and the bottle which fed him, and would go on sucking as patiently at the one as at the other; who would lie with as much apparent comfort on his face as on his back, and seemed to find no distinction between his mother’s arms and a corner of the wide old sofa, which earlier and later babies resented as a personal insult, and made remarks accordingly. However, after six months of this monotonous existence, William Thomas was removed from this lower sphere, passing away with the same dignity as he had lived, after which he served a good purpose still, which was to act as a model to all the other babies who resented the corner of the sofa and declined to accept the substitution of their thumbs, or any other makeshift, for the bottle of their desires. Two years later was a girl, called Polly, and two years later again was Georgie; and then, for a time, Mrs. Dicki’son being free from the cares of a baby, fretted and worried that "’ome isn’t like ’ome without a baby in it." But when Georgie was just turned three little Miriam arrived, and Mrs. Dicki’son was able to change her complaint, and tell all her acquaintance that she did think Georgie was going to be the last, and she was sure she was "just wore out." Most of the children took after their mother. True, as I have already said, William Thomas had given signs of not doing so; but William Thomas had not really lived long enough for any one to speak definitely on the subject. All the rest thrived and grew apace, and they all took after their mother, both in looks and character, with the exception of the second girl, "our Ada Elizabeth." "The very moral of her father," Mrs. Dicki’son was accustomed to sigh, as she tried in vain to trim Ada Elizabeth’s hat so that the plain little face underneath it should look as bright and fresh as the rosy faces of her sisters. But it was a hopeless task, and Mrs. Dicki’son had to give it up in despair and with many a long speech full of pity for herself that she, of all people in the world, should have such a hard trial put upon her as a child who was undeniably plain.