"I'm a good girl, I am; and there ain't nobody can cast a reflection on—on—"
Tears trembled in her voice, and she coughed from the deep recesses of her chest, and turned her head away, so that her profile was quivering and her throat swelling with sobs.
"I—I'm a good girl, I am."
"Aw, Sara, don't I know it? Ain't that just where the rub comes? Don't I know it? If you wasn't a good girl would I be caring?"
"I'm a good girl, I am!"
"It's your health, Sara, I'm kicking about. You're getting as pale and skinny as a goop; and for a month already you've been coughing, and never a single evening home to stick your feet in hot water and a mustard plaster on your chest."
"Didn't I take the iron tonic and spoil my teeth?"
"My sister Lizzie—that's the way she started, Sara; right down here in this basement. There never was a prettier little queen down here. Ask any of the old girls. Like you in looks and all; full of vim, too. That's the way she started, Sara. She wouldn't get out in the country on Sundays or get any air in her lungs walking with me evenings. She was all for dance-halls, too, Sara. She—she—'Ain't I told you about her over and over again? 'Ain't I?"
"'Sh-h-h! Don't cry, Hat. Yes, yes; I know. She was a swell little kid; all the old girls say so. 'Sh-h-h!"
"The—the night she died I—I died, too; I—"