Stan Goodman, Beth Trapaga, Tonya Allen, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. MRS. DAY'S DAUGHTERS By MARY E. MANN "The common growth of Mother Earth Suffices me--her tears, her mirth, Her humblest mirth and tears." CONTENTS CHAPTER I Their Large Hours II Something Wrong At The Office III Forcus's Family Ale IV Disaster V Deleah's Errand VI Sour Misfortune VII Husband And Father VIII The Way Out IX For The Widow And The Fatherless X Exiles From Life's Revels XI The Attractive Bessie XII The Attractive Deleah XIII The Gay, Gilded Scene XIV A Tea-Party In Bridge Street XV The Manchester Man XVI For Bernard XVII What Is It Now? XVIII The Dangerous Scrooge XIX When Beauty Calls XX Sir Francis Makes A Call XXI In For It! XXII The Importunate Mr. Gibbon XXIII Deleah Has No Dignity XXIV The Cold-Hearted Fates XXV To Make Reparation XXVI A Householder XXVII Promotion For Mrs. Day XXVIII At Laburnum Villa XXIX A Prohibition Cancelled XXX Deleah Grows Up XXXI Bessie's Hour XXXII The Man With The Mad Eyes XXXIII The Moment Of Triumph CHAPTER I Their Large Hours It was three o'clock in the morning when the guests danced Sir Roger de Coverley at Mrs. William Day's New Year's party. They would as soon have thought of having supper without trifle, tipsy-cake, and syllabub, in those days, as of finishing the evening without Sir Roger. Dancing had begun at seven-thirty. The lady at the piano was drooping with weariness. Violin and 'cello yawned over their bows; only spasmodically and half-heartedly the thrum and jingle of the tambourine fell on the ear. The last was an instrument not included in the small band of the professional musicians, but was twisted and shaken and thumped on hand and knee and toe by no less an amateur than Mr. William Day himself. The master of the house was too stout for dancing, of too restless and irritable a temperament for the role of looker-on. He loved noise, always; above all, noise made by himself. He thought no entertainment really successful at which you could hear yourself speak. He would have preferred a big drum whereby to inspirit the dancers, but failing that, clashed the bells of the tambourine in their ears. "The tambourine is such fun!" the dancers always said, who, out of breath from polka, or schottische, or galop, paused at his side. "A dance at your house would not be the same thing at all without your tambourine, Mr. Day." He banged it the louder for such compliments, turned it on his broad thumb, shook it over his great head with its shock of sand-coloured and grey hair; making, as the more saturnine of his guests confided in each other, "a most infernal row."