Her eyes had been sharp enough to see on which of her daughters' faces it was that Reginald Forcus's gaze dwelt; she had divined the attraction which drew the pleasure-loving, much sought young man to sit patiently for hours in the evening, watching the girls at their work. She looked, drearily, the vinegar being measured and the customer gone, between the intervening biscuit tins and pickle jars into the street. She had begun to cherish a dream that if not Bessie it might be her pretty Deleah who, through Reggie, should find a way out. "Supposing he really wanted to marry either of us you would not surely like it, would you, mama?" And Mrs. Day was obliged to admit with a kind of shame that she would. "That silly, irresponsible, baby of a young man; without two ideas in his head!" But the mother knew if his head was empty, his pocket was not. He might not be clever, or have much stability of character, but oh, how many things which made life pleasant he possessed! She who had had them, and had lost them, was not one to underrate the value of worldly goods. "I suppose the end will be Bessie must marry Mr. Gibbon," she said, with an effort at resignation and putting away from her unwillingly the golden dream. "I should not blame Bessie," she went on judicially. "He is a good and steady-going man, although so very quiet. Have you noticed, my dear, how very quiet Mr. Gibbon has become?" "Yes, mama." "I suppose it is love which makes him so quiet." She supposed so, Deleah said. That he had been quieter still would have pleased her better. She could have spared his fierce "I love you," whispered behind the tablecloth when he and she had stooped simultaneously to pick up a knife which had fallen yesterday; his impassioned "Only look at me!" fiercely breathed last night over the candlestick he put into her hand. Both Bessie and her mother looked on the Honourable Charles as Bessie's property. Deleah was frightened at, and ashamed of, these irregular demonstrations. "He is a commonplace, uninteresting looking man--but for something there in his eyes. I don't know if you have noticed what I mean, Deleah?--Yet he will make a safe husband, with no thought in his head but for Bessie; and I suppose we must make up our minds to the sacrifice." CHAPTER XVII What Is It Now? "Any message for your son, ma'am?" Mr. Gibbon inquired one night at supper-time of the widow, and announced that business called him to Ingleby on the next morning. He did not add that he went with special instructions to inquire into complaints again made of Bernard Day by the manager of the branch shop, and to bring back a report on which George Boult could act. "The boy will have to be removed from Ingleby," the draper said. "I want to know if I am justified in discharging him on the spot, or whether I may risk giving him another chance."