Explore "Of No Account" by Ruth Lamb on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
MRS. LIVESEY'S deputy promised to be a very efficient one. Adam and the children found everything in order when tea-time came, and to the little people, the sight of a young face had a great attraction. That of Sarah Evans might well have a charm for the small Liveseys, for, as we know, the mother who scrubbed from morning till night for the common good was very chary of praise or caresses. Too often the toil was accompanied by sharp words and fretful complaints, because her little namesake's hands were less skilful, her movements less quick, than were her own.
Sarah Evans, on the contrary, found much to praise. She told Adam that the children were "just wonderful for putting things in their places when they came in. Mrs. Livesey must have taken a world of pains with them," she said; "and it's a deal harder to get little ones in such neat ways, than to right up after them."