He says that Mrs.Button is my mother--" "She has been dead these six years," said Barney Bill.
"Why didn't you tell me ?" asked Paul.
"I didn't think it would interest yer, sonny," replied Barney Bill, in great distress.

"Yer see, we conspirated together for yer never to know nothing at all about all this.

Anyway, she's dead and won't worry yer any more." "She was a bad mother to me.

She is a memory of terror.

I don't pretend to be grieved," said Paul; "any more than I pretend to be overcome by filial emotion at the present moment.