MADGE, do leave those horrid old stockings, and let’s all have a game at ‘Beggar my neighbour.’ It would keep Jem and Jack from quarrelling.”

“I can’t, unless you’ll darn them for me. There are eight pairs, and they ought to be done to-night ready for the morning.”

“Well, take your chair and sit between them, to keep them apart.”

“What’s the use of that? If Jack were here and Jem in Australia, they’d quarrel somehow. How industrious you are to-night, Edie!”“I am tired.”

“Well, as you’re the only person that’s tired, of course it’s quite fair that you should do nothing.”

“Madge, if you’d asked me civilly to help you, I’d have done so in a minute, but sneering won’t make me, you may be quite sure of that. Why don’t you ask Bessie to do some work?”

“Because she’s younger, and it doesn’t matter so much about her.”

“Madge, get me that little oil-can that your mother uses for the sewing-machine.”

“Yes, father.... Here it is.”

“Madge, there’s baby crying. Run up and rock him to sleep again.”

“Yes, mother.”

The little sitting-room at 15 Buxton Street, Denham Green, seemed a great deal too small to hold such a family party as were now squeezed into it, the above being a few of the remarks flying about there at eight o’clock in the evening. Those gathered in this small space were all members of the Kayll family. There was Mr. Kayll, a little, fair, bald, pleasant-looking man, who was seated at the table with a newspaper before him, on which were spread out tiny wheels, screws, nuts, and cogs of yellowish metal. He had taken the clock to pieces, as it would not go, and was cleaning its works, not seeming to take more notice of the hubbub than if he were stone deaf.

Then there was Mrs. Kayll, a thin, worried-looking woman, who was engaged in putting a patch on the knee of a small and shabby pair of tweed trousers. There was Madge, too, a minute before, but she had gone to baby, and the quiet, regular, “thump, thump” of the cradle rockers could be heard in the room overhead.

The others were so mixed up that it was difficult to distinguish one from another.

That boy with the dark curly hair and mischievous eyes was Jack, aged fourteen, who earned five shillings a week by the labour of his own hands. Beyond him, with his elbows on the table, and his eyes intent on the works of the clock over which his father was busy, was Bob, his elder brother—but no one is likely to remember all these children without a list to look at now and then. Here are their names, ages, and occupations.

Madge, aged sixteen, “mother’s help.”

Bob, aged fifteen, father’s help.

Jack, aged fourteen, a printer’s boy.

Jem, aged thirteen, errand-boy to a chemist.

Edie, aged twelve, school-girl.

Bessie, aged ten, school-girl.

Baby, aged five months. No occupation.

Now, having arrived at a clear understanding, we can get on with the story, and there will be no excuse for anyone mixing up Jack with Jem, Edie with Bessie, or Madge with the baby.

This was the conversation going on between Jack and Jem.

“I do more work for four shillings than you do for five.”

“That you don’t. I work twice as hard as you do any day.”

“Oh, I say! I like that! And you told me yesterday that you’d found time to read Robinson Crusoe all through.”

“I didn’t.”“Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Well, perhaps you’ll be good enough to tell me what you did say, then.”

“I said I’d skimmed it.”

“I don’t think you did; but any way, whether you skimmed it, or whether you read it properly, you wouldn’t have done so when anyone was looking, I know.”

“Now, look here, Jem, if you’re going to lecture me, I shall just sew up your coat-sleeves after you’re gone to sleep to-night, and get ready some more little surprises for you. I won’t be lectured by my youngers.”

“Do be quiet and not quarrel, you two boys,” interrupted their mother in a plaintive tone, as she held up her needle between herself and the lamp, the better to see its eye. “It does worry me so. You’ve given me quite a headache.”

Jack was silent at once. Not so Jem.

“Have we, mother?” he said quickly. “I’m so sorry. But I can’t help quarrelling with Jack. He doesn’t give me any peace. Now this morning I went all the way to the shop with a ticket pinned on the back of my jacket, with ‘This side up, with care’ on it, and Jack says that’s to teach me to brush it before I put it on. And yesterday all my pockets were sewn up, to teach me to keep my hands out of them. It doesn’t. It makes me put them in all the more.”

“Jack,” said Mrs. Kayll severely, “don’t do that sort of thing any more. I forbid it. Jokes of that kind may be very funny to you, but they often lead to serious consequences. And it’s not for you to teach Jem what he ought to do, except by setting him a good example.”

Still Jack was silent. He loved teasing and playing tricks, especially on Jem, and was continually getting into grief by this means.

“I sha’n’t stop at Graves’s long,” said the younger boy soon after in a low tone to his brother.

“It’s very stupid of you, then. You don’t know when you’ve got a good place.”

“I know when I’ve got a bad one, though.”

“The fact is,” said Jack, who had an uncomfortable habit of telling people the exact truth to their faces, “you are jealous of me because I get five shillings a week, and you only get four.”

Jem turned of an indignant scarlet.

“I’m not! I wouldn’t be in your shoes for a pound a week, if I knew it; so now, then!”

“Then you would be very selfish, for a pound a week would make you able to help mother ever so much—buy your own clothes and all sorts of things.”

“Oh, you boys! you boys!” sighed Mrs. Kayll. “Father, did you ever hear anything like them?”

“Like them! Oh, dear, yes, lots of times,” he answered in a preoccupied tone, without looking up from his work. “My brother Tom and I were just as bad at their age. I recollect, though,” he added, glancing at his boys for a minute with a twinkle in one eye, “that my father used to cane us both soundly, and send us to our bed-rooms till we apologized.”

“Oh, but we’ll apologize without that,” cried Jack laughing. “Jem, old chap, shake hands, and never mind my fun.”

Jem was quite ready, and there was peace between them for perhaps half an hour.

But though the boys were quiet, the girls were not. Edith and Bessie were at this moment engaged in a playful and good-tempered struggle for the possession of a worn-out doll, which means that the one who had it in her hand was running round the room, jumping over chairs, or scrambling under the table, with the other catching at her frock or pinafore amid deafening shrieks of laughter.

“Hush, children! Play quietly,” said Mrs. Kayll, and the noise stopped for a minute, only to go on again a little later.

At this point Madge walked in again with the baby in its night-dress on her arm, wide awake, and in the best of spirits.

“He wouldn’t go to sleep, mother, and no wonder, so I’ve brought him down, the sweet darling pet. And did he want to come down-stairs and see all the fun? He should, then, that he should, a chickums, and sissy will nurse him while she darns the stockings.”

And she sat down in her old place, and tried to mend the great holes worn by the boys in the heels of their hose, with the little one on her lap jumping, kicking, writhing, and running great risk of being pricked by Madge’s long needle.

Upon this Bessie, a rather pale, fragile-looking little creature, with great thoughtful gray eyes, left the rough play of which she was already growing tired, and set herself to interest and amuse her baby brother, talking nonsense to him, building up houses of cotton-reels on the table, and letting him knock them over, tickling him, kissing his fat cheeks, until he laughed aloud, and made remarks in his own language, such as “Boo, google, coo-coo,” which singular words little Bessie seemed perfectly to understand.

Meanwhile Edie had drawn a chair to the table, and was quite absorbed in a book which she had read at least six times before, and Jack was behind her, secretly pinning her dress to the legs of the chair, in which feat he completely succeeded without arousing suspicion. He then strolled round looking for some fresh diversion, which was easily found. A couple of metal buttons were lying near Mrs. Kayll’s elbow, ready for placing on the garment she was mending. Jack possessed himself of these, and in two seconds they had gone down Jem’s back, and the culprit had to escape from the room to get away from his brother’s vengeance. Jem dashed after, and the scuffle was soon heard going on overhead.

They were a noisy, merry, poor and unlucky family. Loving one another dearly at the bottom of their hearts, but hiding their love as though it were a crime, quarrelling a good deal, and causing much anxiety to Mrs. Kayll, who used to think sometimes that no woman ever had children so hard to manage and so little time for managing them. For Mr. Kayll, though he was the best of husbands and kindest of fathers, and worked hard all his life, had not the gift of “getting on in the world.”

They were all startled into looking up from their various employments by a loud imperative knock at the door.

Madge and the baby went to answer it, and voices were at once heard that sounded more energetic than polite. Before many minutes had passed the girl came back, rather red in the face, and with a paper in her disengaged hand.

“It’s the baker,” she said in an undertone, so as not to be heard in the passage. “He has brought his bill, and he’s so rude, and says he won’t bring us any more bread unless he’s paid to-night.”

“How much?” asked her father, taking the account from her and looking at the amount. “As it happens, I can do it. Here, Madge, pay him, make him receipt it, get rid of him, and tell him he needn’t trouble to call again.”

Madge took the money and did as she was told. But she stood for a minute in the passage after he was gone, before she rejoined the others, and brushed something from her eyelashes.

“Oh, baby,” she whispered, pressing her face to the cool little cheek. “It’s miserable to be poor. I think there’s nothing more wretched in the world.”

In that sentiment all her brothers and sisters would have agreed. They had had few other troubles, and therefore fancied there was nothing so bad as the want of money.