The next day Mrs. Carpenter set about finding some work. Alas, if there were many that had it to give, there seemed to be many more that wanted it. It was worse than looking for rooms. At last some tailoring was procured from a master tailor; and Mrs. Carpenter sat all day over her sewing, giving directions to Rotha about the affairs of the small housekeeping. Rotha swept and dusted and washed dishes and set the table, and prepared vegetables. Not much of that, for their meals were simple and small; however, with one thing and another the time was partly filled up. Mrs. Carpenter stitched. It was a new thing, and disagreeable to the one looker-on, to see her mother from morning to night bent over work which was not for herself. At home, though life was busy it was not slaving. There were intervals, and often, of rest and pleasure taking. She and Rotha used to go into the garden to gather vegetables and to pick fruit; and at other times to weed and dress the beds and sow flower seeds. And at evening the whole little family were wont to enjoy the air and the sunsets and the roses from the hall door; and to have sweet and various discourse together about a great variety of subjects. Those delights, it is true, ceased a good while ago; the talks especially. Mrs. Carpenter was not much of a talker even then, though her words were good when they came. Now she said little indeed; and Rotha missed her father. An uneasy feeling of want and longing took possession of the child's mind. I suppose she felt mentally what people feel physically when they are slowly starving to death. It had not come to that yet with Rotha; but the initial fret and irritation began to be strong. Her mother seemed to be turned into a sewing machine; a thinking one, she had no doubt, nevertheless the thoughts that were never spoken did not practically exist for her. She was left to her own; and Rotha's thoughts began to seethe and boil. Another child would have found food enough and amusement enough in the varied sights and experiences of life in the great city. They made Rotha draw in to herself. CHAPTER III. JANE STREET. Mrs. Carpenter's patient face, as she sat by the window from morning till night, and her restless busy hands, by degrees became a burden to Rotha. "Mother," she said one day, when her own work for the time was done up and she had leisure to make trouble,--"I do not like to see you doing other people's sewing." "It is my sewing," Mrs. Carpenter said. "It oughtn't to be." "I am very thankful to have it." "It takes very little to make you thankful, seems to me. It makes _me_ feel angry." "I am sorry for that." "Well, if you would be angry, I wouldn't be; but you take it so quietly. Mother, it's wrong!" "What?" "For you to be doing that work, which somebody else ought to do." "If somebody else did it, somebody else would get the pay; and what would become of us then?"