"It is not very satisfactory, I'm afraid, Bessie," she said reluctantly at length.
Bessie's face fell. "I thought I'd better tell you."
"I thought, perhaps, if Reggie does not speak to papa, that papa might speak to Reggie?"
Mrs. Day shook a sharply dissenting head. "That would not be the same thing at all, my dear child."
"What ought we to do, then? I thought you would know. Mothers have to arrange these things, haven't they?"
"Well, you see, Bessie, usually the young man--"
"I know. But Reggie does not wish to. If you must know, mama, he said so, in so many words."
"But I think that something ought to be done. You ought to do something--or papa. _Everything_ can't be left to me!"
The tip of Bessie's nose grew pink, her lip quivered, tears showed in her pale blue eyes. Mrs. Day laid a soothing hand upon her arm.
"We won't talk of it any more now," she said. "We are both tired. We will sleep on it, Bessie. Go to bed, dear, and leave everything till the morning."
Her silver candlestick in her hand, Mrs. Day trailed her rich green satin across the landing, pausing at the door of Bernard, her second-born, coming between Bessie and Deleah. She listened a moment, then rapped upon the door. "In bed, dear?"
To the bedside of the youngest child she betook herself next. Franky, who had been sent to bed several hours before the rest, was sound asleep. There were nine years between this child and Deleah; Franky was the baby, the darling of them all. The mother, tired as she was with the duties and responsibilities of the evening, stood long to look upon the sleeping face of the boy. His dark hair, allowed, through mother's pride in its beauty, to grow longer than was fitting for a boy, curled damply about his brow, his small, dark, delicately aquiline features were like the pretty Deleah's. The elder boy and girl, fair of skin, with straight hair of a pale, lustreless gold, resembled their father; Mrs. William Day was not so far blinded by love of her husband as not to rejoice in secret that at least two of her children "favoured" herself.
The mother sat for a few minutes on the bed, her candle shaded by her hand, to watch the child's regular breathing. "My darling Franky!" she whispered aloud; and to herself she said, "If only they could all always keep Franky's age!" She smiled as she sighed, thinking of Bessie and her love affair, about which she had many doubts; of Bernard, who, in spite of prayers and chidings, would smoke in bed, and had once set fire to his bedclothes; of Deleah, even, who, schoolgirl as she was, had, and held to, her own ideas, and was not so easy to manage as she had been. If a mother could always keep her children about her, to be no older, no more difficult to make happy than Franky!