Mr. Gibbon would not bring his pipe, but presently he appeared among them, and drew up a chair to the table between Bessie and Deleah, and proceeded quite cleverly to cut up the orange and lemon peel, a task allotted him by Deleah.
"It is quite the nicest and least messy of all the things," she told him.
Deleah was careful at all times to show little special politeness to their boarder. She had it on her mind that he lived among them, lonely and apart, and often anxiously she pondered in her own mind the question did poor Mr. Gibbon get his money's worth?
"Deleah always chops the candied peel herself," Bessie explained. "She eats it, and feeds Franky on it. Mama, I should think Deda will soon take all the profit off your mincemeat if she eats the citron peel."
"Don't eat the citron peel, my dear," mama dutifully admonished the pretty younger daughter.
"Only the tiniest little bit, mama. Kind of hard bits that you can't cut up. Bessie can take my place, and I can grate the nutmegs if she likes."
"But last night, Miss Deleah grated her thumb as well. We can't have any of your thumbs, Miss Deleah, in the mincemeat."
It was Emily who made that observation. Emily who had gone into the family nineteen years ago as nurse to the eldest child. She had stuck by them in their reverse of fortune--indeed it had never entered either her mind or theirs, so completely had the long service made her one of them, that she could do anything else--and she now occupied the position of "general" in the upstairs kitchen of Bridge Street. She was chopping suet at the present moment, standing apart, at a side table, because Bessie had declared that to see the suet cut made her feel ill.
"Miss Bessie's more nice than wise," Emily commented; but she removed her material from the young lady's vicinity.
"I'm glad to know that I'm nice, at any rate," Bessie said, with her head on one side. "So long as I'm nice, Emily--?"
"Oh there's more than me in the world that think you that, I suppose, Miss Bessie."
"I don't know, I'm sure," Miss Bessie languidly murmured. "I only know I'm very tired."
"Give up for to-night then, dear, and go to bed."
"Nonsense, mama. As if I could leave you all! Why should not I work as well as poor Mr. Gibbon, for instance?"