You see, I don't stay at home much, only when I have to.

We don't have a round table with a red cloth and a lamp on it, and children 'round it playing games and doing things, and fathers and mothers reading and mending.

And it's lots jollier where they do have them.
Nurse says my father and mother ought never to have been married.
That's what I heard her tell our Bridget one day.

So the first chance I got I asked her why, and what she meant.
"Oh, la! Did you hear that ?" she demanded, with the quick look over her shoulder that she always gives when she's talking about Father and Mother.

"Well, little pitchers do have big ears, sure enough!" "Little pitchers," indeed! As if I didn't know what that meant! I'm no child to be kept in the dark concerning things I ought to know.