About this story
Your son William dashes off to the fair and comes home flushed with two rose eggcups he insists are for you alone. Walter returns near midnight, red-faced and a day's wages short; the quarrel that follows ends with him lifting the eggcups anyway, and one slips and shatters against the hearth as the child inside you turns for the first time.
How it opens
The Bottoms looks neat from the front; no visitor need inspect the ash pits.
End house, extra garden, and only sixpence above the common rent.
I told you this end house was the best bargain in the whole row.
At thirty-one, you expected a third child and could not welcome the added need.
William MorelMother, the wakes have started. I heard the organ from the hill.
Your seven-year-old had finished breakfast with his cap already on.