She shivered, then turned to see if the sleeping baby were well covered,
and resumed her dreary musing.

"I don't wonder our people almost welcome a wreck when they are so poor.
Of course it's wicked; but if there must be storms, and ships have got
to go to pieces--God forgive me! I believe I was almost wishing for one,
myself! If there were only something I could do; but what can I? Here
are the children; they must be cared for, and the baby above all,--what
can one do when there's a baby to look after? I suppose some would say,
ask her people to take him; but who is there? Her mother is dead, and
her father a deaf old man who can't live long; she had no sisters, and
her brothers are sailors who are off all the time. There's only her
cousin 'Liza, and I couldn't give the poor little fellow up to that
hard, coarse woman; besides, I promised her and I promised father to
care for him myself. If I could go out into the world, it seems as if I
might find a place; I am strong and young, and not afraid to work, but
here there is no opportunity."

Then, after a long, silent gaze into the fire,--

"God certainly knows all about it; he could help me if he would; I
wonder why he doesn't? Does he treat us as I sometimes do baby--corner
us all up till there's only one way to go, and so make us walk straight?
But to walk straight now looks as if it led to starvation."

Her head drooped lower, and her thoughts grew too roving and
uncontrolled for connected expression; in fact, her brooding had become
almost actual dreaming, when the door swung back with a bang, and the
two children rushed in, Molly screaming with laughter and resistance as
she fled before Morton, who was close at her heels.