If only the girls
could find homes--Deleah she knew would provide for Franky--she would shut
up the hateful shop, would give up the humiliating struggle--she being an
earthen vessel--to swim with the hateful Coman who was of iron. She would
then, she thought, go to bed and to sleep, and would sleep and sleep, and
never get up again. Orthodox Christian as she was, in her anxious,
worried, and wearied existence the joys of Heaven did not tempt her so
much as the possibility of enjoying a long, uninterrupted sleep.
She was kept late in the shop that night, and when at length she went
upstairs she found only a glum family party already at the supper-table
awaiting her.
Franky, who generally talked, whoever else was silent, was conspicuous by
his absence, he having been ordered out of the room by his sister Bessie
because his clothes smelt.
This was a constant source of grievance and friction between the eldest
and youngest hope of the house. The poor boy had not many changes of
raiment, and he being of an age to dabble in any mess that came handy
without reference to his sister's olfactory nerves, there was no denying
the fact that his little brown tunic, his worn little trousers had
acquired a very _boyey_ smell.
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