Deleah looked with a little distrust at the tickets lying beside her plate. "It's all very well, but I should so much prefer presents without all this mystery about them. Months ago I would have thanked Mr. Boult if you and mama would have allowed me. I am sure it would have been better. I am sure we ought to thank him." "That doesn't matter now. We've got to think about the concert. I'm going to it, and I can't go without you." "I don't know if we ought to go, Bessie--" "Why not, pray?" Deleah was silent. "Because of papa? He's been dead nearly two years. Are we never to show our noses among other people again? You do carry things to extremes, Deda!" Deleah accepted the reproach meekly, having nothing to say--nothing, that is, which Bessie would understand. Then the boarder came in, for it was early closing afternoon, and took his place by the side of Franky. "Some more mysterious presents," Bessie said, smiling upon him. "Very useful ones, this time, and just what I should have wished for." "Tickets for the concert," Deleah explained, pushing them across to him. "Ten-shilling ones. Poor Mr. Boult hates music. I heard him say once that he believed every one hated it, and that when they pretended to like it it was only affectation and humbug. What pleasure can he possibly get in giving us these tickets for which we may not even thank him?" "He'll have the pleasure of knowing that you are happy, and that he has made you so, Miss Deleah. And you too, of course, Miss Bessie." "But Mr. Boult no more sent those tickets, than he sent the bird in the cage, or the--!" "Oh, you're thinking of Reggie Forcus again," Deleah interrupted impatiently. "Such nonsense, Bessie!" "She thinks a lot more of him than he does of her," Franky announced, munching his bread-and-butter. Bessie got up from her place at the tea-tray and with purpose in her eyes walked round the table. "You take that for impertinence, sir!" she said, and administered a stinging slap to Franky's cheek. His intention of immediate retaliation was frustrated by Mr. Gibbon's seizing the tea-spoon he was about to hurl at his assailant. "I hate Bessie," Franky said; but he was used to having his face slapped by his elder sister, and went on munching his bread-and-butter and water-cress, not much the worse. "We can't go to the concert, Bessie," Deleah was presently saying. "We've got no evening frocks." "Oh, but we have!" Bessie quickly reminded her. "The frocks which were new for our party and never worn again." "We _can't_ wear them!" Deleah pleaded. She felt that she could never endure even to look at those garments again.