"He is going to be for the future. He asked leave to call. It is a little awkward as you are always at the school, and mama is always downstairs"—(Bessie had never yet brought herself to say "Mother is in the shop") "I would have asked him to come in the evenings, but he" (again a nod towards the figure of the guardian-angel on the box-seat) "is always there."
"Well, why not?"
"Can't you understand that Reggie might not care to meet a young man out of a draper's shop?"
"But he comes to call on people in a gro—"
"That's different," Bessie quickly announced. "We weren't always there, remember."
"Wednesday afternoons I am at home after three. Saturdays I am at home all day."
"I know," Bessie said, but did not promise to avail herself of the protection offered by her sister's presence on those occasions.
CHAPTER XIV
A Tea-Party In Bridge Street
His time being so fully occupied in his own business during the week, and those hours he had been wont to pass with his friend William Day being still unfilled, Mr. George Boult had fallen into the evil habit of coming to hold a business consultation with the widow on the Sunday afternoons. The Day family complained bitterly of this custom. The poor grocer-woman's one blessed day was no longer hers, to be passed from morn to eve in the midst of her children, in rest and peace and forgetfulness of business worries.