As no one
seconded the invitation, "Do stay," Deleah said. And he gracefully
yielded.
"Since you are so polite, I don't mind if I do," he said. He really felt
honoured by the invitation, the first he had ever received in that house.
The long low-ceilinged sitting-room above the grocer's shop was tenanted
by ladies of whom in days gone by he had felt a certain awe. Down in the
world as they were now, he never forgot that ancient attitude of theirs.
Even when he bullied Mrs. Day, and advised her daughters to do the work of
servants, he had not forgotten. Perhaps at such times he remembered it
more than ever.
His wife, dead for the last seven years, had been of a different make from
these women. Finding nothing in himself to debar him from being an
ornament in any society, he saw very well that the late Mrs. George Boult
had been, as he put it, "of another kidney." He had been fairly content
with her while he had her; she had been a good housekeeper; and had not
crossed him in his wish to save money; but looking back upon the poor
woman, he saw plainly that she had not the appearance of these ladies, nor
had she spoken like them, nor possessed the ways of them. She had been all
very well for his then condition, but times had changed for him; and here
he was, well pleased to be sitting at the board of people who would not at
one time have received the late Mrs.
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