Mrs Days Daughters

Mrs. Day's Daughters, by Mary
E. Mann

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Title: Mrs. Day's Daughters
Author: Mary E. Mann
Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7941] [This file was first posted on

June 3, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, MRS.
DAY'S DAUGHTERS ***

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Proofreading Team.

MRS. DAY'S DAUGHTERS
By
MARY E. MANN

"The common growth of Mother Earth Suffices me--her tears, her mirth,
Her humblest mirth and tears."

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Their Large Hours II Something Wrong At The Office III Forcus's
Family Ale IV Disaster V Deleah's Errand VI Sour Misfortune VII
Husband And Father VIII The Way Out IX For The Widow And The
Fatherless X Exiles From Life's Revels XI The Attractive Bessie XII
The Attractive Deleah XIII The Gay, Gilded Scene XIV A Tea-Party In
Bridge Street XV The Manchester Man XVI For Bernard XVII What Is

It Now? XVIII The Dangerous Scrooge XIX When Beauty Calls XX
Sir Francis Makes A Call XXI In For It! XXII The Importunate Mr.
Gibbon XXIII Deleah Has No Dignity XXIV The Cold-Hearted Fates
XXV To Make Reparation XXVI A Householder XXVII Promotion
For Mrs. Day XXVIII At Laburnum Villa XXIX A Prohibition
Cancelled XXX Deleah Grows Up XXXI Bessie's Hour XXXII The
Man With The Mad Eyes XXXIII The Moment Of Triumph
CHAPTER I
Their Large Hours
It was three o'clock in the morning when the guests danced Sir Roger
de Coverley at Mrs. William Day's New Year's party. They would as
soon have thought of having supper without trifle, tipsy-cake, and
syllabub, in those days, as of finishing the evening without Sir Roger.
Dancing had begun at seven-thirty. The lady at the piano was drooping
with weariness. Violin and 'cello yawned over their bows; only
spasmodically and half-heartedly the thrum and jingle of the
tambourine fell on the ear.
The last was an instrument not included in the small band of the
professional musicians, but was twisted and shaken and thumped on
hand and knee and toe by no less an amateur than Mr. William Day
himself.
The master of the house was too stout for dancing, of too restless and
irritable a temperament for the role of looker-on. He loved noise,
always; above all, noise made by himself. He thought no entertainment
really successful at which you could hear yourself speak. He would
have preferred a big drum whereby to inspirit the dancers, but failing
that, clashed the bells of the tambourine in their ears.
"The tambourine is such fun!" the dancers always said, who, out of
breath from polka, or schottische, or galop, paused at his side. "A dance
at your house would not be the same thing at all without your
tambourine, Mr. Day."

He banged it the louder for such compliments, turned it on his broad
thumb, shook it over his great head with its shock of sand-coloured and
grey hair; making, as the more saturnine of his guests confided in each
other, "a most infernal row."
But an exercise of eight hours is long enough for even the most
agreeable performance, and by the time Sir Roger de Coverley had
brought the programme to an end the clash and rattle of the tambourine
was only fitfully heard. Perceiving which, Deleah Day, younger
daughter of the house, a slight, dark-haired, dark-eyed girl of sixteen,
left her place in one of the two sides of the figure, extending nearly the
length of the room, ran to her father, and taking the tambourine from
him pulled upon his hands.
"Yes, papa! Yes!" she urged him. "Every year since I was able to toddle
you have danced Sir Roger with me--and you shall!"
He shouted his protest, laughed uproariously when he yielded, and all
in the noisy way, which to his thinking