CHAPTER XV The Manchester Man Mrs. Day had retired to write her letter to Bernard in the privacy of her own room, and Bessie, in radiant spirits, had gone off to dress for evening service, where she was to go escorted by Franky and Emily. Deleah was left in charge of the boarder. It was a point of honour with them all that the young man should have his money's worth while under their roof, and above all, should have his meals in comfort. The cup which Bessie had poured out for him stood cold and untasted by his side. Deleah took it from him. Certainly he should not have the dregs of the tea-pot; she would brew a fresh pot for him. "I beg you will not trouble, Miss Deleah. It is my fault in being late." He, who held the creed that a gentleman must never allow a lady to wait on him (unless she was his mother, or he was married to her), must follow Miss Deleah to the kitchen, also on the upper floor, must watch her rinse the tea-pot, must advise with her as to the amount of tea required to make the three large cups he always drank, must himself pour the boiling water, she, with many exhortations from him to be very careful lest she scalded her fingers, holding the tea-pot. There was something delightfully homelike and familiar in this sharing of simple duties. Deleah, returned to the sitting-room where she sat to fill his cup and to cut him bread-and-butter, was as lovely a vision as any man could desire to see at his board. Pleasantly and gaily she chattered, waiting on him with her dainty hands. He, tongue-tied, answering little, embarrassed and ill at ease in that sweet society. For a year and a half he had lived in the dingy house above the shop in Bridge Street. He had for eighteen months enjoyed that propinquity, that familiar intercourse, which is all that is necessary to make many an ugly woman beautiful in the eyes of the man in enjoyment of her society. It is small wonder then, if the poor Manchester man exaggerated in his own mind those unusual charms which Deleah incontestably possessed. A year and a half! And in all that time he could never recall an occasion when he had been left for any length of time alone with Deleah, before. It was Bessie who had constituted herself his especial friend, had seized on him, talked to him, made confidences to him, and satisfied herself it was his wish to talk to her. Deleah, he knew, had looked on him as Bessie's property. He had resented this assumption, but had not known how to dispute it. Besides being of a loveliness which he had come to think unsurpassed, she was so gentle, so tender-hearted, so pitiful, this young Deleah; so adorably kind. She had learnt in that grief and shame which he knew had befallen her a lesson, taught her he was sure by the pitying angels of God; to think no sorrow too trivial to be despised, to be tender even to the scratched finger, the bruised shins of the poor men and women scrambling painfully along the tough and thorny path of life.