"To think of his a-gettin' hisself up like that!" Emily said with an amused scorn of the poor man as the cab containing the three drove off. "There's no doubt what he've set his mind on, 'm. But Miss Bessie ain't for such as him. She'll look higher." When Mr. Reginald Forcus came into the Assembly Rooms with his brother and the sister who since the death of Lady Forcus kept house at Cashelthorpe, and made his way to seats not very far removed from those the sisters occupied, Bessie impulsively seized a bit of Deleah's bare arm in her finger and thumb. She pinched it unconsciously but with such painful emphasis that in the morning Deleah discovered the place to be black and blue. "There he is! Quite close to us! _Now_ perhaps you will believe! I always knew it was he who sent the tickets, and sent all the flowers and things! and he sent them for me--only you always took them to yourself, Deda." She was very smiling, very happy and excited and flushed, through the concert. She looked so pretty, so like the Bessie of the "party" days of old, that Deleah thought not only Reginald Forcus but every man who saw her must admire her pretty sister. When the "half" arrived, and the ten minutes in which the audience is permitted to stretch its legs and crane its neck, and acknowledge the presence of its acquaintance, behold the younger Forcus eagerly recognising the sisters, and bowing in response to Miss Bessie's delighted smiles and nods. "Oh, what a pretty girl!" a woman's voice said. There had come a sudden lull in the buzz of talk, and the exclamation reached the ears of many more than his for whom it was intended. Deleah felt sure it was Bessie who was being admired. She looked quickly at the speaker. It was that middle-aged sister with the pleasant, kind face who had come to take the place of Sir Francis Forcus's dead wife. It was to Sir Francis she had spoken, but she might have been proclaiming the fact of her discovery of a pretty girl, for the general benefit; so complete had been the temporary calm into which her speech had broken. Heads were turned, and several pairs of eyes were fixed upon Deleah. By a good many present the sisters were recognised, and here and there a smile was turned on them, and here and there a cool, discreet little bow was made. And more often the people who knew them, having involuntarily looked, looked away again; for them the girls' presence there, in a fashionable company and the most expensive seats, was an offence. "People we were asked a little time ago to keep from starving!" they said to themselves. "If Mrs. Day's daughters can afford this sort of thing, we might as well have kept our guineas in our pockets."