"Oh no, you couldn't," interrupted Aunt Emma, feeling that she had perhaps been a little severe. "You can't do everything. If you help earn our living for us all, it is our work to look after the house. You haven't got time and strength for both. Don't you be trying to do too much, Bella. You're barely seventeen yet, you know." Aunt Emma's voice trembled a little, for she still found it hard to let any one see the kindly feeling that was in her heart. "Will you have to live in Norton altogether?" asked Margery dolefully, for she did not like the thought of losing Tom and Bella. Bella, who read her feelings, hastened to comfort her. "Oh no," she cried; "we've only taken the shop and a room behind it. Such a nice little room, Aunt Emma. You will have to come in and have tea there sometimes. The top part of the house is let to some one else. We shall drive in every day with the fresh things to sell, and come home at night. I think florists and greengrocers--doesn't it sound grand, daddy?--don't do much after the morning, and I should think we could shut the shop at four or five in the afternoon every day but Saturdays. Don't you, father?" "May I come in sometimes and serve the customers?" asked Maggie eagerly. "Of course you shall." "When I've got a pig to sell will you carry it in too and sell it for me?" asked Charlie quite gravely. "You would put it in the window for me, wouldn't you, so that people could see it?" "Of course," answered Tom, with equal gravity, "if you would sit there and make it behave. We don't want the window broken, for we haven't insured it yet, and we don't want all our things spoilt." "It would be a wonderful attraction," went on Charlie thoughtfully, as though he had not heard his brother; "it would draw crowds, and give you such a start-off. I think you'd have to pay me so much an hour, it would be such a fine advertisement." "It would draw people to the window, but I don't know that it would bring them inside," laughed Bella. "Of course people would think you were for sale too," said Margery; "it would be awkward if they wouldn't buy the pig unless you went with it----" But her sentence was never finished, for Charlie chased her out of the kitchen, and they finished their dispute in the garden. "We'll begin tea; we won't wait for those harum-scarums," said Aunt Emma, lifting a tart out of the oven; and the four drew cosily round the table. Bella always loved those evening meals at the end of the long day in market, when they sat and enjoyed at their leisure the good things Aunt Emma provided, while they talked over all that had happened at home and abroad. To-day seemed a day set apart, a special day, for had not their father walked to the milestone to meet them? This, in Bella's eyes, was a more important event than the taking of the shop. From the garden came sounds of laughter and screaming, the sober clucking of the hens, and the louder calling of Margery's ducks.