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She thought a great deal, too, of her poor mother, who was looking strangely weak and poorly, and whose condition was rendered worse by her nervous fears that she would not get through this confinement. For the doctor had told Mrs. Saunders that the next time it might go hard with her; and in this house, her husband growing more reckless and drunken, it was altogether a bad look-out, and she might die for want of a little nourishment or a little care. Unfortunately they would both be down at the same time, and it was almost impossible that Esther should be well in time to look after her mother. That brute! It was wrong to think of her father so, but he seemed to be without mercy for any of them. He had come in yesterday half-boozed, having kept back part of his money--he had come in tramping and hiccuping.