'You great fool, John,' said my lady, as Annie and I used to call her, on account of her airs and graces; 'what a pity you never read, John!'
'Much use, I should think, in reading!' I answered, though pleased with her condescension; 'read, I suppose, with roof coming in, and only this chimney left sticking out of the snow!'
'The very time to read, John,' said Lizzie, looking grander; 'our worst troubles are the need, whence knowledge can deliver us.'
'Amen,' I cried out; 'are you parson or clerk? Whichever you are, good-morning.'
Thereupon I was bent on my usual round (a very small one nowadays), but Eliza took me with both hands, and I stopped of course; for I could not bear to shake the child, even in play, for a moment, because her back was tender. Then she looked up at me with her
