"Not particular so"--when his daughter took him up.

"Oh yes, sir, he is very hard-worked. Fourteen, fifteen, eighteen hours
a day. Sometimes twenty-four hours at a time."

"And you," said Barbox Brothers, "what with your school, Phoebe, and what
with your lace-making--"

"But my school is a pleasure to me," she interrupted, opening her brown
eyes wider, as if surprised to find him so obtuse. "I began it when I
was but a child, because it brought me and other children into company,
don't you see? _That_ was not work. I carry it on still, because it
keeps children about me. _That_ is not work. I do it as love, not as
work. Then my lace-pillow;" her busy hands had stopped, as if her
argument required all her cheerful earnestness, but now went on again at
the name; "it goes with my thoughts when I think, and it goes with my
tunes when I hum any, and _that's_ not work. Why, you yourself thought
it was music, you know, sir. And so it is to me."

"Everything is!" cried Lamps radiantly. "Everything is music to her,
sir."

"My father is, at any rate," said Phoebe, exultingly pointing her thin
forefinger at him. "There is more music in my father than there is in a
brass band."

"I say! My dear! It's very fillyillially done, you know; but you are
flattering your father," he protested, sparkling.

"No, I am not, sir, I assure you. No, I am not. If you could hear my
father sing, you would know I am not. But you never will hear him sing,
because he never sings to any one but me. However tired he is, he always
sings to me when he comes home. When I lay here long ago, quite a poor
little broken doll, he used to sing to me. More than that, he used to
make songs, bringing in whatever little jokes we had between us. More
than that, he often does so to this day. Oh! I'll tell of you, father,
as the gentleman has asked about you. He is a poet, sir."

"I shouldn't wish the gentleman, my dear," observed Lamps, for the moment
turning grave, "to carry away that opinion of your father, because it
might look as if I was given to asking the stars in a molloncolly manner
what they was up to. Which I wouldn't at once waste the time, and take
the liberty, my dear."

"My father," resumed Phoebe, amending her text, "is always on the bright
side, and the good side. You told me, just now, I had a happy
disposition. How can I help it?"

"Well; but, my dear," returned Lamps argumentatively, "how can I help it?
Put i