"Really, mama, how absurd! Is the old man wanting to marry me? Are you to have the billing and cooing by proxy?" There was no mistake about it, adversity had not improved Bessie; her mother had to admit to herself that she was even sometimes vulgar. "You might have spared me that, I think, Bessie," poor Mrs. Day said. She was deeply offended and hurt. She would not wait to finish her dinner, but went down into the shop and busied herself there till Mr. Pretty had put the shutters up. Then she dressed herself in the widow's bonnet she still wore, the shabby silk mantle with its deep border of crape, the black gloves so much the worse for wear, and saying no further word to Bessie went out. "Of course I know where she's gone," said Bessie to Emily, her unfailing confidante. "To Franky's grave. It isn't the place to make her a lively companion when she comes back again; and it isn't very cheerful for me to have to sit at home and think of her there." "'Tis mother-like, Miss Bessie." Franky's grave held attraction for Emily also, who visited it every Sunday of her life. "Yes, but, Emily, oughtn't mama to think of me as well as of Franky? And I've no patience with her. I think she ought to make up her mind, and have done with it. Quite young girls, with all their lives before them, make marriages for money, why should she make such a fuss?" "The young ones don't know what they're a-doing, perhaps; and your ma does," the sage Emily hazarded. "And if the old man comes to-day what do you suppose I'm to say to him?" "There never was a time yet when you didn't know what to say, Miss Bessie." "It's all very well. Why should I be mixed up in it? I shall just say nothing." "Then he can sit and look at you, and that's what he likes." Bessie's eyes glinted: "But if he likes it--and he has always acted as if he did--then why? why? why--?" She spread out the palms of her plump, white little hands, making the dramatic inquiry of Emily, who, with a black rag dipped in whitening, was polishing the "brights," as she called her tin and pewter ware. "Ah," Emily said; "he's one of your cautious ones, Boult is. Them that are young and fascinatin' aren't the best of housekeepers, per'aps." Bessie stood silent for a minute, watching the vigorous rubbing of a dish-cover. "You go and change your frock," Emily said, glancing up at her. "Put on that black-and-white muslin you look your nicest in--" "I ought to wear all black for a year, Emily." "You put on your black and white," coaxed Emily.