"If I took as good care of myself as my husband does, I'd live to be a
thousand."
"Now, little woman, you got up on the wrong side of bed to-day."
On this particular morning he descended genial, rubbing cold,
soap-exuding hands together.
"Well, little woman! Good morning, daughter."
"Ben, I'm at my row's end with Lilly. Something has got to be done or I
can't stand it."
He sat down, an immediate tiredness out in his face, adjusting his
napkin by the patent fasteners to each coat lapel.
"Now, Carrie, have you and Lilly been quarreling again? Doesn't it seem
too bad, Lilly, that you and your mother cannot get on without these
disturbances? Your mother may have her peculiarities, but she
means well."
A ready wave of red self-commiseration dashed itself across Mrs.
Becker's face.
"I can't stand it, Ben. I don't know what she wants. Maybe you can
please her. I can't. Everything I do is wrong. Everything."
In her little blue-gingham morning dress, out of which her neck flowered
white and ever beautiful of nape, Lilly crumbled up her biscuit, eyes
miserably down, the red-hot pricklings which invariably accompanied
these scenes flashing over her and a crowding in her throat as if she
must tear it open for language to make them understand.
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