"It's when they gets past the time that females is likely to cast an eye
to them that they're dangerous--so madly are they then overcome with
love," she asserted.
"I don't think old Scrooge will ever be dangerous," Bessie regretfully
demurred. She was much interested. "What do you mean by 'dangerous,'
Emily?"
Emily would not descend to detail. She nodded a wise head. "You look out!"
she counselled. "And remember, Miss Bessie, I'm always at hand when he's
near."
The idea that the elderly draper might suddenly become riotous, gave
always a zest to the _tete-a-tete_ which otherwise it might have lacked.
She was, truth to tell, a little disappointed to find him after each visit
no more alarming than he had been before. She even tried to pique him into
an exhibition of the "dangerous" symptom, treating him with the caprice
and the disdain she dared not have shown but for Emily's repeated
assurance she could play as she liked with him and he would never take
offence. The mother, Deleah, even little Franky, had to mind their "P's
and Q's" with the man who, as he himself had phrased it, "stood at the
back of them." Bessie was on a different plane, she told herself, and
could do as she liked.
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