Deleah called Mr. Pretty from the cellar to the shop, and taking her mother's arm led her to the sitting-room. "Now if you feel you _must_ collapse or cry, mama," she adjured her parent with a touch of the scorn the younger generation felt for elders accustomed, in that day, to meet all crises with tears and faints, or at the least wild gesticulation--"if you _must_, do it now, and here; so that when they come you can be calm and dignified." "_Our_ Bessie!" Mrs. Day kept saying, wringing her hands and looking up with appealing eyes swimming in tears. "Our Bessie! Our pretty, attractive Bessie! And that man! That _old_ man!" "It won't do to go on like that when they come, mama," Deleah warned her. "You can't tell him he is old. You must not even tell Bessie so, now. Bessie isn't like you and me, remember, who would have been wretched and ashamed. She thinks of his money and his carriage. She does not think she has played an underhand game. She thinks she has been cleverer than the rest of us. She is pleased with herself, and proud, and Emily is proud of her. Well, if you must cry--cry, mama. Cry all you can now, so, on no account, you shed one tear before _them_." By the time Bessie appeared--she came without her bridegroom, who had thought a meeting with the mother of his bride would be, under the circumstances, awkward--Deleah's exhortations had had their effect. Bessie--partial to "scenes" and making them, of her own, on any occasion--expecting one now was disappointed. She came in, in her white dress and bonnet, her fair plump face flushed, her eyes twinkling in anticipation of the sensation she was about to create, and found mother and sister gravely awaiting her. "Here I am! I am married, mama," she announced. Instead of the outburst she had expected: "Yes, my dear, so I have been hearing," Mrs. Day said. "I don't know why you need have kept it secret from me, but now it is done, all I can do is to wish you every possible happiness, Bessie." It was disappointing: very flat and tame. Mrs. Day got up and kissed her daughter, and Deleah followed suit. "It would have been nicer for you to have mama and me with you at your wedding, I should have thought," Deleah said. "Isn't Mr. Boult coming to speak to us?" "No," said a slightly crestfallen Bessie. "He thought there would be a fuss." "It is too late to make a fuss, Bessie." "Well, we thought so; and that there was no good in his being bothered; so he's gone straight on to the station to wait for me. We go up to town by the 1.20. I join him in half an hour. The carriage will wait." "That's all right, dear. You'd better have something to eat before you go." Emily was summoned to bring refreshments. The tray was already, having been prepared before they left for church, and on it was a small wedding-cake bought with Emily's savings, and a bottle of port purchased from the same meagre fund. The white sugared cake was to be a surprise to Bessie: