"Always."

"There!" said Bessie on the note of triumph, looking round.

"There!" echoed Deleah as she helped herself to the mustard Mr. Gibbon was
offering her.

"Mama, do you hear Deda? She is not to mock me."

"Bread, Miss Deleah? Pickles, Mrs. Day?" hastily interposes an obsequious
Mr. Gibbon. He was assiduous in his attentions on the ladies, ever
anxiously polite and kind. That he found his happiness among them and was
eager to gain and to retain their favour he plainly showed. If he
sometimes jarred on their fastidiousness he did not know it.

"Any interesting incident in the day's trade, ma'am?" he asked, as he
busied himself in supplying their wants.

Nothing much. The Quaker lady had been again for sugar. Again Mrs. Day had
unconditionally pledged herself that the canes from which it had been
derived had not been grown by slaves.

"And have they?" Deleah asked.

"I'm sure, my dear, I don't know if they have or they haven't," a harassed
grocer-woman acknowledged. Her conscience was becoming blunted in the
stress and strain of business life. "She took a pound of it as usual, and
that's all I can say about it."