He sat down, an immediate tiredness out in his face, adjusting his napkin by the patent fasteners to each coat lapel.
"Now, Carrie, have you and Lilly been quarreling again? Doesn't it seem too bad, Lilly, that you and your mother cannot get on without these disturbances? Your mother may have her peculiarities, but she means well."
A ready wave of red self-commiseration dashed itself across Mrs.
Becker's face.
"I can't stand it, Ben. I don't know what she wants. Maybe you can please her. I can't. Everything I do is wrong. Everything."
In her little blue-gingham morning dress, out of which her neck flowered white and ever beautiful of nape, Lilly crumbled up her biscuit, eyes miserably down, the red-hot pricklings which invariably accompanied these scenes flashing over her and a crowding in her throat as if she must tear it open for language to make them understand.
"Talk to your father, now! Tell him some of the things you hound me with."
"Lilly, what seems to be the trouble?"
"I—I don't know. Mamma gets so excited right away. I just happened to mention that—I don't know what to do with myself."
"Do with yourself! Help me in the house. I can give you enough to do with yourself. I don't get lonesome."
"Carrie, now, don't holler."