"Perhaps!" Deleah acquiesced seriously. "I must think about what you say."
"You've done me a great honour to mention it, Miss Deleah. You won't think
I'm taking upon myself in any way to give you my opinion?"
"Oh, Mr. Gibbon! How could I ever think such a thing!" Deleah said, but began at once to be a little ashamed of the confidence she had made. With a man who could ask if he was "taking upon himself" she ought to have been more reserved, she thought.
CHAPTER XIII
The Gay, Gilded Scene
Mrs. Day, being told that her daughters proposed to go unchaperoned to the Assembly Rooms that night, declared that for them to do so was unheard-of and not to be sanctioned. But, under the strain of adversity the poor woman's will, never a strong one, had weakened. She was painfully conscious of her own helplessness in the grip of circumstances, and was always troubled with doubts as to the wisdom of her own judgment. By the time her day's work was over she was too tired to stand up against any power she came into collision with. In all that concerned Bessie she was absolutely feeble. Bessie was victor always, not by reason of superior strength but through fractiousness, through stubbornness, through a hysterical determination to talk the opposing voices down, through her habit of crying like a baby when contradicted, and flinging things about.
So, on this particular occasion, the elder daughter avowing in a high, excited voice that not many pleasures came in her way, and that when one did come she meant to take it, let her mother be pleased or let her be teased, the objections were speedily silenced.
Leaving the shop for once in the care of Mr. Pretty, Mrs. Day went upstairs for the pleasure of seeing her girls once more in gala attire.
"I have taken the liberty of ordering a fly for the young ladies," Mr.
Gibbon said as he and the mother sat awaiting the appearance of the pair.
"Oh, Mr. Gibbon, if you would go with them, and see them safe to the
Assembly Rooms I should be so much obliged."