“My boy! My boy!”
Her boy bellowed: “Hot water!”
Can a mother's tender care cease towards the child she bare?
Oh! needless to ask such a question, you for whom is pictured this devoted woman plunging at breakneck speed for the bathroom, screaming as she runs: “Susan! Kate! Jane! Jane! Kate! Susan!”
Doors slammed, cries echoed, stairs shook, as trembling servants rushed responsive.
Crashing of cans, rushing of water, called them to the bathroom.
“Oh, m'am! What is it?”
Water flew in sprays as the agonised mother tested its temperature with her hands; cans rattled as she kicked them from where, in dragging one from the shelf, the others had clattered about her feet.
Jane, Kate, and Susan clustered in alarm about the door: “Oh, m'am! M'am! Whatever is it?”
Mrs. Chater gave no reply. Her can full, she plunged through them. This way and that they dodged to give her passage; dodge for dodge, demented, hysterical, she gave them—slopping boiling water on to agonised toes; bursting through at last; thundering up the stairs.