Black was not a fashionable wear in that age, only being used for mourning. A woman wearing black did it to proclaim she sorrowed for the dead. The sentiment attached to her sable garments heightened the interest awakened by Deleah's slight form and her winsome face;—made her clear skin paler; made her eyes shine more jewel-like beneath the fine line of her black brows.
Among the members of her own sex were, at the period of her eighteenth birthday, all the captives to her charms of which Deleah was aware. There is no such ardent lover as a schoolgirl when she conceives a passion for another girl at school; and half a dozen of the little pupils at Miss Chaplin's were head over ears in love with Deleah Day. They sighed at her, their adoring eyes clung to her face, they suffered agonies of jealousy through her. They were cast down by a word, elated by a smile.
One of the girls then acquiring a polite education at Miss Chaplin's seminary remembers to this day how she slept, night after night, with a glove—such a worn and shabby glove—of the young English teacher beneath her pillow. She possesses still an album called "The Deleah Book," wherein is pasted an atrocious photograph—all photographs (cartes-de-visite they were called)—were libellous and atrocious in those days—of a girl in a black frock, the skirt a little distended at the feet by the small hoop of the day, a short black jacket, with black hair parted in the middle over a smudge of a face and gathered into a net at the back of the neck. Beneath it is written Deleah's name and the date.
In "The Deleah Book," too, are treasured, scrawled there in the schoolgirl writing, the words of wit and wisdom gathered from the idol's lips, together with such precious items of information and memorabilia as the following:
"Tennyson is the favourite poet of D. D."
"Of all flowers the rose is the Queen, and is the best loved of D. D."
"To remember to keep back unkind words. D. D."
"If we knew all we should find there are excuses for all. D. D."
"(Note). Burnt almonds are the favourite sweet of D. D. and 'Abide with
Me' is D. D.'s favourite hymn."
Their ways lying in the same direction, it was this young devotee who was privileged to walk home with the passionately admired D. D. On a certain afternoon as they made their way through the quiet streets of the old town their talk was of a long-advertised concert to take place that evening, at which a great singer was to appear.