"I come home last night, as usual, more dead than alive, until I got sitting down with the childre; for, having put two or three potatoes, as usual, my lady, to heat, just on the bar, I thought, tired as I was, I'd iron out the few small things 'Loo' had put in blue, particularly a clane cap and handkercher, and the aprons for to-day, as yer honor likes to see me nice; and the boy got a prize at school; for, let me do as I would, I took care they should have the _edication_ that makes the poor rich. Well, I noticed that Loo's hair was hanging in ringlets down her face, and I says to her, 'My honey,' I says, 'if Annie was you, and she's my own, I'd make her put up her hair plain; the way her Majesty wears it is good enough, I should think, for such as you, Louisa;' and with that she says, 'It might do for Annie; but for her part, _her_ mother was a tradeswoman.' Well, I bit my tongue to hinder myself from hurting her feelings by telling her _what_ her mother was, _for the blush of shame is the only one that misbecomes a woman's cheek_. But I waited till our work was over, and, _picking her out the two mealy potatoes_, and sharing, as I always did, my half pint of beer with her, when I had it, I raisoned with her, as I often did before; and looking to where my three sleeping childre lay, little Jemmy's cheek _blooming like a rose_, on his prize book, which he took into bed with him, I called God to witness, that though nature, like, would draw my heart more to my own flesh and blood, yet I'd see to her as I would to them. She made me no answer, but put the potatoes aside, and said, 'Mother, go to bed.' I let her call me mother," continued Biddy, "it's such a sweet sound, and hinders one, _when one has it to call_, from feeling lonesome in the world; it's the shelter for many a breaking heart, and the home of many a wild one; ould as I am, I miss my mother still! 'Louisa,' I says, 'I've heard my own childre their prayers--kneel down, a'lanna, there, and get over them.' 'My throat's so sore,' she says, 'I can't say 'em out. Don't ye see I could not eat the potatoes?' This was about half past twelve, and I had spoke to the po-lis to give me a call at five. But when I woke, the grey of the morning was in the room with me; and knowing where I ought to have been, I hustled on my things, and hearing a po-lis below the window (we know them by the steady tramp they have, as if they'd rather go slow than fast), I says, 'If you plaise, what's the clock, and why didn't you call me?' 'It's half past seven,' he says; 'and sure the girl, when she went out at half past five, said you war up.'