"But for what happened to him you would not be where you are, Deleah," she
said.
"But you wish me to be there, mama?"
"Oh, I wish it, dear, since you are happy; only--"
She did not put the thought into words--only Franky seemed to have died
for this. Franky, who had come crying to her one day because a
school-fellow had laughed at the patch on this trousers: Franky who had
begged so hard only a few hours before his death for a little box of
conjuring tools like Willy Spratt's, which had to be denied him. Her
little Franky crushed to death beneath the wheels of the Forcus carriage!
In her heart the mother would have liked Deleah to reject the good things
offered her by the Forcus hand.
"Of course I am not happy!" Deleah said. "How can I be happy, mama, if you
are unhappy? And poor little Franky--do you think I forget him? And
Bernard, and--poor papa? And again I'm not happy because I don't _earn_
the money they pay me," Deleah said, and her cheeks grew pink at the
thought. "It is out of charity they give it me. I _can't_ earn fifty
pounds a year by just sitting in a carriage, or sewing beads on to canvas,
giving a few messages to servants, writing a few letters! I wonder if they
would be glad if I gave it all up, mama?"
"We're leaving the shop," Mrs.
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