"Mama won't like it if you don't brush your hair. I shall tell her if you don't, Deda."
"Tell her, then!" Deda challenged, and hurried into her nightgown, and flung herself on her knees by the side of her bed, and hid her face in her hands, preparatory to making her devotions.
A soft tapping on the door before it opened, and Mrs. Day, candlestick in hand, appeared. A pretty woman of medium height, middle-aged, as women allowed themselves to be frankly, fifty years ago. She wore a handsome dress of green satin, a head-dress of white lace, green velvet and pink roses almost covering her plentiful dark hair.
"Not in bed yet?" she whispered, and looked at the small white kneeling figure of the younger girl, her hair hanging in a dusky mass of waves and curls and tangles upon her back. Deleah was hurrying conscientiously through the established form of her orisons, trying to achieve the prescribed sum of her supplications before her mother left.
"Can I speak to you for a minute, mama?" Bess demanded, with an air of importance. "Not here," glancing at Deleah; "outside; just a minute."
"Pray God bless dear papa and mama, sister and brothers, and friends. Make us all good and bring us safe to heaven at last. Amen," Deleah gabbled, her face upon the white quilt, her ears open.
"Certainly, dear." Mrs. Day stepped back, closing the door behind her daughter and herself.
"I don't want Deda to know. She's such a blab, mama."
"Oh, my dear, I don't like to hear you say that!"
"But she is. And she listens to things." Here Bessie pushed the door behind her open, to reveal the culprit in her white nightgown on the other side of it. "I should be ashamed to be a Paul Pry!" Bessie said with indignation and scorn.