"Mama, I wonder what Mr. Boult would say if he came in now and found me working like a slave at ten o'clock at night?" "Nothing complimentary, dear, I fear." "Horrid, rude man! Yesterday afternoon he found me sitting over the fire reading. I was in your comfortable chair, Mr. Gibbon--I hope you don't mind?" "I hope you'll always do it the honour of sitting in it, Miss Bessie; and you, Miss Deleah--" "I was gloriously comfortable; and Mr. Boult took upon him to lecture me." "Well, he doesn't stop at much! but how he ever screws up his courage to lecture _you_, Miss Bessie, passes everything," said the polite Manchester man. "I thought you'd be surprised," and Miss Day smiled obliquely at the nutmegs. "He called me names, too." "Names, Bessie! Surely not! What can you mean by 'names'?" "He called me a drone, mama. A drone in a busy hive." "And how did you answer him, Bessie?" "I just went on, toasting my toes at the fire, and reading my book." "And what then, Miss Bessie?" "Oh, then he sat down opposite to me and preached me a sermon. A sermon of five minutes, by the clock. He said--" "We don't want to hear any sermons, thank you," from a petulant, tired Franky. In the stress of their work the poor child's hour for retiring was often overlooked. "Go to bed, Franky. Go off, this minute. Mama, send Franky to bed." "Oh, go at once to bed, my darling boy." Franky, crying that he wanted to sit by Deleah and see her cut the citron peel, was removed: "I hate Bessie," he announced at the door. "Go! spoilt little wretch!" cried Bessie, threatening him with the nutmeg grater. "Mama, Franky is becoming as rude as a horrid little street boy." "Never mind, my dear. Tell me what Mr. Boult said in the sermon." "He said my happiness as well as my duty was to work. He said my 'peevishness,' and my 'nervy fits'--wasn't it rude of him!--came from idleness. He did, Mr. Gibbon, he said it in so many words." "I hope you gave him one for hisself, Miss Bessie?" "Oh, I hope not!" from an alarmed mother. "It is what he wants, ma'am; and it is what he never gets. It is bully, bully, bully, all the day, with the governor. And unless Miss Bessie stands up to him--" "You may trust me not to be afraid. All the rest are afraid. Not I! I just raised my eyes to him, and said 'I wonder you dare to use such words to me, Mr. Boult!' You should have seen him look! 'It's because I take an interest in you,' he said; quite quiet, like any other man. It does him good to snub him, mama." "It was kind of him to say he takes an interest," Deleah put in. "Now if he was only a handsome young gentleman, and Miss Bessie could take an interest in him, there'd be more sense," Emily remarked from her side table. "Don't be such a ridiculous old thing, Emily!" "Well, he've got his kerridge!" "And a pretty sight he looks driving in it! podgy, fat, vulgar man!"