"Poor Bessie! She is such a child always," Deleah said.
"She is that, Miss Deleah. I tell you how 'tis with me and Bessie--spite
of her having such a way with her with the gentlemen, and such a will of
her own--I have always felt I haven't never lost the little girl I had to
wait on when first I come to service with your ma."
CHAPTER XXXII
The Man With The Mad Eyes
The other women being employed in the daytime, the sitting-room had been
more especially Bessie's domain. How strange and chilling was the thought
it would be empty of Bessie for evermore. Her untidy work-basket peeped
out from under the sofa where she always pushed it on the appearance of a
visitor; the penny weekly paper in which she read of the fashions, and the
romantic love-matches of which she had dreamed while making an absolutely
sordid marriage herself, was tucked behind the cushion of her chair.
Deleah stood within the doorway for a minute, without entering, feeling
strangely bereaved and forlorn. Not much sympathy had been between the
pair, but the ties of blood are stronger than is realised till "marriage
or death or division" snaps the cord.
With a lagging step Deleah went forward into the so pathetically empty
room.
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