"I mean every word of it. Pretending to dislike him! Pretending to keep out of his way!"
"Deleah, I have told your sister I nearly died of astonishment when he spoke to me. The idea had never entered my head." Poor Mrs. Day leant the head upon her hand and hid her face, in her misery.
"Bessie, you are not to bully mama. Do be silent. Don't mind her, mama.
What did you say to him?"
"I didn't say one way or the other."
"Such nonsense!" cried the irrepressible Bessie. "You'll have to say! and he isn't in any doubt about it. He came to me and told me he was going to be my papa. I could have felled him to the earth when he said it! But I did not. I said 'You may be a papa to me a hundred times over, I will never be a daughter to you. Never! Never! Never!'"
"But if mama did this horrible thing, you'd have to be his daughter—you'd have to live in his house—"
"I'd live there, but I'd make it warm for him!" Bessie cried; and then her feelings becoming too much for her, she dashed from the room, and slammed the door behind her.
Deleah, left alone with her mother, did her best to strengthen her. "Never mind her, mama. Do not think of any of us in this; think of yourself alone. You could never do it."
"Bessie and he would fight like cat and dog," Mrs. Day said. "They are always fighting now. She says such things to him, and he to her! Environment has told on Bessie. She says things no lady should say. My life would be unbearable."
"It is not to be thought of for a moment."