"Not she!" Here Emily would lean over the back of her mistress's chair and crane her neck to get a better view of the raiment in question. "Bran' new, I'll lay a guinea! And her still fifteen pound in your debt!" "Here come the Briggses! Look out, m'm!" presently she would cry. "Well, and ain't they figged out! The whole four of the girls--and every one of 'em in a new bonnet! And them buyin' a pound-and-a-half of butter a week for the whole fam'ly! Tha's what I always say, m'm; the Briggses is a fam'ly that save out of their insides to put it on their bids. Now, here come the best-lookin' young ladies and young gentleman we have set eyes on yet." And then Mrs. Day's own daughters, with Franky clinging to Deleah's arm, would be seen to approach. "We think so, don't we, Emily? It's because they're our own, you know," the mistress would say, with her deprecating smile. "It's because they're ours, that they seem to look so nice." But in her heart she heartily agreed with Emily that hers was indeed a charming family. In the evening Bessie would go off to church again, escorted by Emily, but Deleah would stay with her mother. They would sit together in peaceful, delicious idleness over the winter fire, or, it being summer, they would go forth, escaping by backways and narrow lanes of the old town from the crowded pavements to the quiet roads with their formal rows of trees, their flower-packed gardens and trim hedges. Slowly they would pace along, enjoying the sweeter air of the suburbs, or, gardenless themselves, would stand to peep through garden-gates at the well-ordered array of geranium, calceolaria, verbena; sniffing the fragrance from the serried rows of stocks, the patches of mignonette, or the blossoming lime-trees overhead. When on that scented Sabbath peacefulness the warm dark would begin to descend, it sometimes happened that the boarder, Charles Gibbon, who also loved the scent of flower and of shrub, and enjoyed the soft air of evening upon his cheek, would meet or overtake Mrs. Day and her daughter as they sauntered homewards; and in a very friendly and pleasant way the three would finish their walk together. But about the Sunday afternoons there was a less agreeable tale to tell. The young ladies retired with their books to their bedrooms, on those occasions; Franky took refuge with Emily in the kitchen, a store of oranges and nuts having been laid in by that faithful retainer for his entertainment there. The Manchester man saw more than enough of his employer on week-days, and would have preferred to pass a Sabbath afternoon in the cellar with the coals, to spending that portion of his precious holiday with his employer. Poor Mrs. Day was compelled therefore to receive her taskmaster and benefactor alone.