Mrs Days Daughters | Page 6

you. At present he has not
said a word, except to Bessie. I think Reggie should. I think--"
"Never mind what you think. Let's come to facts. Is there or is there not
anything serious in this affair?"
"Bessie says there is."
"Can't you give a plain answer to a plain question? Is young Forcus,
who is always hanging about the place, making love to my girl or is he
not?"
"He has certainly paid her attention."
"Is he engaged to her?"
"Bessie considers herself engaged. But as I tell Bessie--"
"I don't want that. What you think, or what you tell Bessie. I want facts
to go upon. Without facts you can't expect me to act."
"I really do not wish you to act, William."
"Leave that to me. I am not asking what you wish," William snapped at

her; and then turning on his side he seemed to go to sleep.
CHAPTER II
Something Wrong At The Office
Mrs. Day had decided to spend the first morning of the New Year in
superintending the relaying of the drawing-room carpet and the
reducing her house to its habitual order after the dance. Bessie had
decided otherwise. She had decided that she should be driven in the
carriage, her mother beside her, to some flooded and frozen meadows,
three miles out of the town, where many of the young people who had
danced last night had arranged to go to skate. Deleah and the boys had
started to walk there immediately after breakfast. Bessie, who could not
skate, wished to be there also, but did not choose to walk, and could not
be allowed to be in the carriage alone.
The girl, very fair and pretty in her velvet jacket with the ermine collar
and cuffs, seated in the victoria by her mother's side, eagerly scanned
the broad expanse of ice for the familiar figure of the young man who
had paid her such particular attention during the memorable galop. She
looked in vain. There were several of last night's partners who came to
the side of the carriage and asked for the ladies' health after the fatigue
of the dance, and descanted on their own freedom, or otherwise, from
weariness. Deleah, her face the colour of a wild rose, her loose dark
hair curling crisply in the frosty air, shouted greetings to her mother as
she flew past, a little erect, graceful figure keeping her elegant poise
with the ease of the young and fearless. Now and again she was seen to
be fleeing, laughing as she went, from the pursuit of a skater who
wished to make a circuit of the flooded meadow holding Deleah's hand.
The girl was at once a romp and shy. She laughed with dancing eyes as
she flew ahead; but captured, had a frightened, anxious look, her eyes
appealing to her mother as she passed in protest and for protection.
"Deleah will be a flirt when she grows up," Bessie said, who knew that
her mother was regarding the pretty child with admiration.
"Do you think so, my dear? I hope not, Bessie."

"She will! And she wants looking after. I thought, for a girl not yet
'out,' she was very forward last night. Reggie thought so too."
"I'm afraid you put it into his head, Bessie."
"As if Reggie had not got ideas of his own! Without my even so much
as hinting he said he supposed she knew she was pretty."
"Reggie isn't here to-day, Bessie."
"I think he will come. He said he would come, and as I could not skate
he promised to push me in a chair on the ice. We need not go home yet,
mama. I like watching the skating."
But she only watched the arrivals; and Reggie Forcus was never among
them.
"Perhaps he's gone to speak to papa," she said brightly after a silence."
No doubt he thought, after all, it would be better to get things settled. I
expect that is what Reggie has done, mama."
"I would not think so much about it, if I were you, my dear. Wait until
matters have arranged themselves."
"Yes, but ought not we to do something to arrange them?" Bessie
persisted.
"It is not usual, Bessie."
"But, mama, am I to lose Reggie for any nonsense of that sort? Usual or
not usual I think you or papa should speak to him."
To pacify her the mother admitted that her father had even thought of
doing so.
"Then I hope papa will have the sense to do it; and to get the whole
thing settled," Bessie said.
She awaited in feverish expectancy the return of her father from his

office, that evening, welcoming him with bright eyes and eager looks,
trying to read in his face that which