Deleah, when she had sent off the cheque, whose receipt must have surprised him exceedingly, to her brother, felt herself to be almost bursting with the desire to confide in some one the history of her visit to the rich brewer. She longed to descant on his looks, to repeat his words, above all to tell of the heavenly promise contained in that last divine sentence concerning Franky. No one must be told; but Deleah was over young to be burdened with a secret; it made her restless. She could not sit with Bessie, to hear her discuss the pattern of the sleeve she was cutting out for a new Sunday frock. She ran down to the shop, for the relief of being near her mother. Mrs. Day glanced at her with welcoming eyes and turned at once again attentively upon her customer, a good lady difficult to please in the matter of candles. "A tallow candle will do very well for the servants to gutter down, in the kitchen," she was irritably declaring. "But neither my daughter nor me can abide the smell of tallow; and your wax ones are a cruel price. Cruel, Mrs. Day! I suppose you could not make a reduction by my taking two packets?" Mrs. Day shook a patient head. "We really get almost nothing out of them, as it is," she sadly protested. "These candles--called composite--ladies are beginning to buy them for servants' use as well as their own. I sell more composites now than either wax or tallow." "You couldn't oblige me with one or two to try?--Oh, good afternoon, Miss Day. So you are not above coming into the shop sometimes, to bear your mama company?" "Above it!" said Deleah; and because she had to be as sweet as sugar to her mother's customers, she smiled upon Mrs. Potter, who turned from the counter to engage her in talk. "What for you, my dear?" Mrs. Day's next customer was a very shabby, very small boy, his grimy, eager face appearing just above the counter. "A ha'p'r' o' acids, like th' last." He held up the coin in his fist to assure her of the good faith of the transaction. "You give me more 'n that, last time, for a ha'p'ny. You ha'n't weighed 'em," the customer grumbled. "Lucky for you I have not! Here! Take your ha'penny and be off." Many customers of that unremunerative order had the widow. When the ragged little ones happened to be about the age of Franky they were sure of bouncing weight, and of getting their money returned. She smiled upon the scaramouch now, who was watched from the door by half a dozen confederates. The ha'penny was common property apparently, for each was presently clamouring for his share.