Sometimes the weary woman on the couch would start suddenly
from her sleep and cry out, choked and gasping, "No! No!
No!" The children would jump, terrified, and come running
to her at first, but later they got used to it, and only
looked up to say, when she asked them, bewildered, what it
was that wakened her, "You had the no-no-nos."

She had never told of the thing that made her start out of
her sleep and cry out like that. Perhaps it was just the
protest of the exhausted body and the overwrought nerves.
Usually, after that, she would sit up, haggardly, and take
the hairpins out of her short thick hair, and announce her
intention of going to bed. She always insisted that the
children go too, though they often won an extra half hour by
protesting and teasing. It was a good thing for them, these
nine o'clock bed hours, for it gave them the tonic sleep
that their young, high-strung natures demanded.

"Come, children," she would say, yawning.

"Oh, mother, please just let me finish this chapter!"

"How much?"

"Just this little bit. See? Just this."

"Well, just that, then," for Mrs. Brandeis was a reasonable
woman, and she had the book-lover's knowledge of the
fascination of the unfinished chapter.