"Oh, my dear child, I hope not!" "Scrooge?" cried Bessie. "Never!" Bessie herself had bestowed the name of Scrooge on the successful draper, to whom, as far as his personal appearance went, it was absurdly inappropriate. "It is Scrooge;--a converted Scrooge; and I, I suppose, am Tiny Tim. And he has heaped benefits on me, mama; meaning thereby to benefit the family." "Oh, my dear, it can't be! I am sure you are wrong, Deleah. Mr. Gibbon, do say she is wrong. It can't possibly be Mr. Boult." Mr. Gibbon only threw back his head and loudly laughed. Deleah was a little hurt that the boarder should have forgone his usual careful politeness to receive the exposition of her idea with ridicule. She contemplated him gravely till he stopped laughing and gazed with an apologetic, anxious gravity in his protruding, extraordinarily speaking eyes back at her. Then she turned from him to her mother. "Why do you think it impossible, mama? Because Mr. Boult can't _say_ agreeable things is no reason he cannot do them. Don't you know that there are poor shut-up souls who want to be nice, who long to be loved--who have to speak in the dumb language because they can't articulate?" "Miss Deleah is right. That is so. That is so!" Mr. Gibbon eagerly affirmed. "Well, then, Mr. Boult isn't blessed with a tongue to say smooth things; but the bird in the cage, the basket of sweets, the rose-pink azalea--they are his kind and polite speeches." "My dear, what nonsense!" cried Mrs. Day, who did not wish to believe in Mr. Boult as the author of such agreeable attentions. But the Manchester man assented with enthusiasm: "Miss Deleah is right, ma'am," he said. "A man who could not get at Miss Deleah to say things to her might try to say them so." "And you think Mr. Boult wants to say things to Deleah?" a scornful Bessie demanded. "No, I don't, since you ask me. No, Miss Bessie." "I should think not! And why, pray, should he have pitched on Deda?" "Oh, why should any one pitch on me?" Deleah asks, lays down knife and fork, spreads hands abroad, as if inviting with exaggerated humility an inspection of her poor claims to favouritism. "But--if it were Mr. Boult I think I can understand why it might be Deleah," Mrs. Day said slowly, looking down. She was remembering how her poor husband had made no secret of the fact that the younger girl was his pet; and she recalled also that for her father's sake it was Deleah who treated the arrogant, tyrannical man with unfailing respect and courtesy. "Yes. And I can understand it too, mama," Deleah softly said. "Well, them that live'll see," Emily remarked sententiously as she removed the remains of the sago pudding. CHAPTER XII The Attractive Deleah