over before he came—"What! here you all are, all waiting I see; well, keep quiet and help one another; don't expect me to do more than carve."
Mrs. Bangs had drilled the children well, for a more orderly, peaceable set were never seen. Her chief aim was to keep them from troubling their father. "Poor man," she would say, "he must not be plagued with noise, for what with the business of the laboratory and building new houses, his hands are full—but let that alone, 'tis no concern of ours."
She never thought of her own full hands; for she was of a nature that delighted in work, and in doing things regularly and methodically, and all the girls were like her. Busy, busy, busy, they all were from morning till night, and most happily busy. It was making, and mending, and razeeing, and cooking, and preserving, and housekeeping, and shopping, and keeping accounts. Was not this quite enough to occupy them?
Mr. Bangs built houses and Mrs. Bangs looked to the tenants and collected the rents. The only thing she knew, out of the routine of her family duties, was the various ways of disposing of money, and before she was the mother of three children she made herself fully acquainted with the meaning of the terms dividends, stock, per centage, mortgages and notes of hand. She put the money in the bank as fast as she received it, and Mr. Bangs drew checks to any amount she chose—well he might.
Mrs. Bangs thought it more suitable and economical to have a governess for her daughters, so she hired a decent young person, who was an excellent needle woman, and who could write and cipher admirably. Reading and spelling, Mrs. Bangs said, seemed to come "by nature" with the poor, dear, chubby, little things; how else could they learn, for poor Hannah French was as deaf
