"Not she!" Here Emily would lean over the back of her mistress's chair and
crane her neck to get a better view of the raiment in question. "Bran'
new, I'll lay a guinea! And her still fifteen pound in your debt!"
"Here come the Briggses! Look out, m'm!" presently she would cry. "Well,
and ain't they figged out! The whole four of the girls--and every one of
'em in a new bonnet! And them buyin' a pound-and-a-half of butter a week
for the whole fam'ly! Tha's what I always say, m'm; the Briggses is a
fam'ly that save out of their insides to put it on their bids. Now, here
come the best-lookin' young ladies and young gentleman we have set eyes on
yet." And then Mrs. Day's own daughters, with Franky clinging to Deleah's
arm, would be seen to approach.
"We think so, don't we, Emily? It's because they're our own, you know,"
the mistress would say, with her deprecating smile. "It's because they're
ours, that they seem to look so nice."
But in her heart she heartily agreed with Emily that hers was indeed a
charming family.
In the evening Bessie would go off to church again, escorted by Emily, but
Deleah would stay with her mother. They would sit together in peaceful,
delicious idleness over the winter fire, or, it being summer, they would
go forth, escaping by backways and narrow lanes of the old town from the
crowded pavements to the quiet roads with their formal rows of trees,
their flower-packed gardens and trim hedges.
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