An aversion for physical shortcoming, from her mother's occasional
headaches to the mortally afflicted Mr. Hazzard with the great chronic
sore crisscrossed with court plaster at the end of one of his eyes,
amounted in Lilly to something actually Indian.

"Oh, mamma, if I had a headache, I wouldn't always be talking about it.
People aren't interested."

"I'm going to tell your father when he comes home to-night what a
sympathetic daughter I have. If ever I fall sick the City Hospital will
be the place for me. When I see the way that Flora Kemble carries her
mother around and the way my own daughter sympathizes with me. If I
don't tell your father this night!"

It was this queer little congenital urge that kept Lilly on her feet for
two weeks after the malady had hold of her. With a stoicism that taxed
her cruelly, she would march smilingly off to school, a bombardment of
pains shooting through her head, her hands and tongue dry, a ball and
chain of inertia dragging at her ankles.

"Lilly, what is the matter? Why don't you eat your bread and butter
after school? Has Mrs. Schum said anything?"

"No, no, mamma. I'm not hungry, that's all."

"Funny. Open the closet. There is a basket of oranges behind your
father's overcoat, and a bag of baby pretzels, too."

"Goodness! mamma, if I was hungry, I'd eat."