"And what for you, pray?"

Mrs. Day asked for a quarter of a pound of tea, and while he served her
looked about at the dark little dirty shop with its mingled odours.

When she left the establishment of Jonas Carr her spirits had risen. The
whole thing was ludicrous. Imagine the name of Lydia Day, "licensed to
sell tobacco and snuff," painted over the door! Imagine her--her!--behind
the counter of that squalid little shop! Imagine Bessie, and her exquisite
young Deleah passing their lives in that upper room behind the net
curtains! It was ridiculous, grotesque, impossible, and could not be.

But she was to find with astonishingly small waste of time that it could
be.

And it was.




CHAPTER X

Exiles From Life's Revels


For the first year that Mrs. Day waited behind the counter of the Bridge
Street shop more trade was done there than in the most prosperous period
of old Jonas Carr's tenancy. Quite half the ladies of Brockenham left
their particular grocers to bestow their custom on the widow. From