"Tickets for the concert," Deleah explained, pushing them across to him.

"Ten-shilling ones. Poor Mr. Boult hates music. I heard him say once that he believed every one hated it, and that when they pretended to like it it was only affectation and humbug. What pleasure can he possibly get in giving us these tickets for which we may not even thank him?"

"He'll have the pleasure of knowing that you are happy, and that he has made you so, Miss Deleah. And you too, of course, Miss Bessie."

"But Mr. Boult no more sent those tickets, than he sent the bird in the cage, or the--!"

"Oh, you're thinking of Reggie Forcus again," Deleah interrupted impatiently. "Such nonsense, Bessie!"

"She thinks a lot more of him than he does of her," Franky announced, munching his bread-and-b.u.t.ter.

Bessie got up from her place at the tea-tray and with purpose in her eyes walked round the table. "You take that for impertinence, sir!" she said, and administered a stinging slap to Franky's cheek. His intention of immediate retaliation was frustrated by Mr. Gibbon's seizing the tea-spoon he was about to hurl at his a.s.sailant.

"I hate Bessie," Franky said; but he was used to having his face slapped by his elder sister, and went on munching his bread-and-b.u.t.ter and water-cress, not much the worse.

"We can't go to the concert, Bessie," Deleah was presently saying. "We've got no evening frocks."

"Oh, but we have!" Bessie quickly reminded her. "The frocks which were new for our party and never worn again."

"We _can't_ wear them!" Deleah pleaded. She felt that she could never endure even to look at those garments again.

"But we can, and we will," Bessie declared. She was a very practical person in matters connected with millinery and dressmaking, and in a minute had planned the slight alterations and additional furbishings required for their party frocks. Black ribbons instead of blue run in the lace of the bodices. Deleah's skirt would be short, but who would see that if Deleah were sitting down?

Deleah drooped as she listened, leaving the tea in her cup and the bread-and-b.u.t.ter untouched on her plate.

"Elbows off the table, Deda," Franky reminded her, who was frequently commanded to remove his own.

Deleah took no heed. She sat with brow leaning upon the hand which screened her face, looking back upon that evening before the shadow of misfortune and disgrace had touched them all; when she had worn her new white silk frock, and papa had played the tambourine.

Bessie had gone, leaving her tea also, untasted; hurrying away to Emily, who would help her to pull off the forget-me-nots from her frock, and to subst.i.tute the black ribbon which would be more decorous. Bessie's pale, full cheeks were pink with excitement, her eyes shone.

"Black will look better than blue, even--although that _was_ your colour--against your white skin," Emily encouraged her.

Mr. Gibbon had made himself a neat sandwich of water-cress and thin bread-and-b.u.t.ter. He paused in the act of daintily sprinkling it with salt pinched in finger and thumb, and looked at Deleah across the table, her hand hiding her face. So long he looked at her, so long she remained unconscious of him, that Franky ventured in their preoccupation to help himself to a third piece of cake, his allowance being two.

"Miss Deleah, if you don't want to go to this concert to-night, why go?" at length the boarder ventured to ask. Deleah dropped the shielding hand; she had for the moment forgotten the presence of Mr. Charles Gibbon.

"Bessie wants to go. Of course, I must go with her," she said.

"But why 'of course,' if you don't wish? Whoever sent those tickets--"

"Mr. Boult sent them."

"Well, then, Mr. Boult sent them to make you happy; not unhappier."

"I know. I am really quite grateful, Mr. Gibbon. It was only those dresses. We wore them at a dance at our house--the evening before--everything. I can't think how Bessie can! But she does not feel things as I do. She never did feel like--dying--of pity--and sorrow--as I did." She lifted her cup to her lips to hide the fact that tears were rolling down her face.

Mr. Gibbon sighed heavily. He pushed his own cup away from him as a signal perhaps that for him also the tea was spoilt. "But why need you go in that particular frock, Miss Deleah?"

"I haven't another."

"The one you have on."

"This one? Oh!"

She laughed with the tears in her eyes, and looked down at her school frock--a black skirt and a white muslin "garibaldi" (the garment so called at that time being extremely like the shirt blouse, or waist, as the Americans have it, of to-day). "Oh, how funny men are!" she said. "To think I could go in the half-guinea places in such a dress!"

"It's a beautiful dress, isn't it! It seems so to me. And I don't think it matters at all what you wear, Miss Deleah."

He spoke in a hushed voice, as if conscious of saying something of tremendous import. Deleah accepted the remark as a simple statement of a fact.

"It doesn't matter, perhaps, really. But Bessie thinks differently. Most people do. I shall have to wear what Bessie wishes."

"I notice you are always the one to give way, Miss Deleah."

"No--not always, Mr. Gibbon."

"Can I do anything? I would do _anything_--" He spoke in the same hushed voice; with his arms extended on each side of his plate, he was gripping the edge of the table tightly, "Anything!"

"I know. I know you are a true friend. I know she talks to you. She talks about Mr. Reggie Forcus. Bessie can't see that things are different with us--at least she sees, of course, but she does not realise that they must be different; not only now, but for ever. She never sees us with other people's eyes. It never comes home to her that the friends we had we can never have again. What have people like the Forcuses to do with us!"

"I think that Mr. Reggie Forcus, mighty as he thinks hisself, or the Prince of Wales, come to that, might feel hisself honoured to be taken notice of by you, Miss Deleah--or by Miss Bessie."

Deleah laughed in spite of herself. "You are too kind, Mr. Gibbon."

She got up from her chair and picked up the concert tickets and twisted them about in her fingers with a little distaste of them. "All this is very kind of Mr. Boult, of course," she said: "and one likes to be sure there is a generous heart beneath that--well, that atrocious manner of his. But we're under mountains of obligation to people already, and we can do without concert tickets. We can do without--" She was going to say without flowers, but she leant across the table and stooped her face above the pot of heliotrope that graced the centre of the humble board, then lifted it, shaking her head. "No; we could not do without the flowers,"

she said. "I do thank the good man for his flowers; and I shall tell him so the first time I see him. I have made up my mind."

"I would not if I were you, Miss Deleah."

"But why not? Do tell me why not?"

"Mr. Boult is a good business man. He's my chief, and I'm not going to speak against him; but I don't quite see him buying you flowers."

"You know he loved my poor father, don't you?" she asked him in a lowered voice. She had never mentioned the dead man's name to him before; her cheek paled, he saw, as she did so now. "And I was my father's pet. You will not think me vain for saying that, will you? Mama will tell you it is not my selfish fancy alone. Mama will tell you it is true."

"Indeed, Miss Deleah, I can quite believe it."

"He was a good father to us all, and fond of us all, but of me he would talk always if he could get any to listen. He liked me to sit on his knee--I was younger then--to walk with him, and wait on him--" Her voice broke; she waited a minute before she went on. "And so I suppose Mr. Boult sends these things to me for papa's sake. I could not explain before; but you understand, do you not?"

He quite understood her point of view, Mr. Gibbon said, looking at the tablecloth.

"I knew you would, when I could explain. I think poor Mr. Boult likes me to take what he sends, for papa's sake--as if it really came from papa.

You see what I mean? And I can't help thinking there is something beautiful in that thought of his."

Mr. Gibbon reflectively agreed. It was a beautiful thought, come to think of it, he said.

"Well, then--?" said Deleah.