"Have you brought the money for the flour?"
"No, sir mother'll send it."
"We don't cut our hams any more," said the storekeeper. "Can't sell any less than a whole one and that's always cash. There! Go, child I can't cut one for you."
Daisy looked after the little ragged frock as it went out of the door. The extreme mystery of some people being rich and some people poor, struck her anew, and perhaps something in her look as it came back to the storekeeper made him say,
"They're very poor folks, Miss Randolph the mother's sickly, and I should only lose my money. They came and got some flour of me yesterday without paying for it and it's necessary to put a stop to that kind of thing at once. Don't you think that basket'll suit, ma'am?"
Baskets? and what meant those words which had been over and over in Daisy's mind for the few days past? "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." Her mind was in great confusion.
"How much does a ham cost, Mr. Lamb?"
"Sixteen pence a pound, ma'am," said the storekeeper rather dryly, for he did not know but Daisy was thinking a reproof to him.
"But how many pounds are there in a ham?"
"Just as it happens, ma'am sometimes twenty, and from there down to ten."