"He is my little brother. Very much younger than the rest, and the pet with all of us. Mama says, but for Franky, she thinks she could never have survived the troubles she has had. I think we all felt that. We could not be always crying and melancholy in the company of a little boy who does not understand, and who wants so much to enjoy himself. For Franky's sake we have to be cheerful. He is only nine. Only seven when—all that—happened to papa."
"Franky must not go into one of George Boult's shops," Sir Francis said. "When Franky is old enough to leave school—to begin to earn his living—come and tell me, will you?"
Her face lit, till it was lovely as a sun-kissed flower. "Oh, I will! Oh, thank you," she said; and then she did put out her hand, and for an instant her fingers closed with all their soft strength round the hand he gave her. "Oh, thank you!" she said again.
Then he opened the door for her, and she went.
Deleah, when she had sent off the cheque, whose receipt must have surprised him exceedingly, to her brother, felt herself to be almost bursting with the desire to confide in some one the history of her visit to the rich brewer. She longed to descant on his looks, to repeat his words, above all to tell of the heavenly promise contained in that last divine sentence concerning Franky. No one must be told; but Deleah was over young to be burdened with a secret; it made her restless. She could not sit with Bessie, to hear her discuss the pattern of the sleeve she was cutting out for a new Sunday frock. She ran down to the shop, for the relief of being near her mother.
Mrs. Day glanced at her with welcoming eyes and turned at once again attentively upon her customer, a good lady difficult to please in the matter of candles.
"A tallow candle will do very well for the servants to gutter down, in the kitchen," she was irritably declaring. "But neither my daughter nor me can abide the smell of tallow; and your wax ones are a cruel price. Cruel, Mrs. Day! I suppose you could not make a reduction by my taking two packets?"
Mrs. Day shook a patient head. "We really get almost nothing out of them, as it is," she sadly protested. "These candles—called composite—ladies are beginning to buy them for servants' use as well as their own. I sell more composites now than either wax or tallow."
"You couldn't oblige me with one or two to try?—Oh, good afternoon, Miss Day. So you are not above coming into the shop sometimes, to bear your mama company?"
"Above it!" said Deleah; and because she had to be as sweet as sugar to her mother's customers, she smiled upon Mrs. Potter, who turned from the counter to engage her in talk.