Tom readily. "Bella can manage the pony, and
I'll walk."

Bella was looking at her father, all her thoughts centred on him.
The only shadow on their day, the day when they would reach the height of
their ambition, was that he would not be there to see it. She knew that
he was feeling it too. It would have been such a pleasure to him, such a
grand break in the monotony of his life, if he could have gone too.

"Oh, it must be managed somehow; some way must be found," she thought
desperately--and then inspiration came to her.

"Father, you must come too," she cried, "or--or it won't be a bit right.
Aunt Emma, can't we manage like this, just for once? Suppose you drive in
with Tom and all the things in the morning,"--and she choked back her
disappointment that, after all her dreams and hopes and longings, she
would not be there herself to arrange her first market-stall,--"then I
will drive father in later in Mrs. Wintle's donkey-cart. Do you think you
could bear the drive, father?" she asked anxiously, her eyes alight with
excitement.

"I believe it would do me good," he answered eagerly. His face had been
growing brighter and brighter all the time Bella had been speaking, and
his poor tired eyes were as full of a wistful longing, as were Margery's a
few moments before. "I've thought many a time how nice a little outing
would be, and I do want to see the children make their new venture,"
he added, turning to his sister. "It's one I've been wanting for them
ever since the beginning."

So it was all settled, and in her joy and pride at taking her father for
his first outing, she quite forgot her desire to arrange their first
stall.

To Margery there was nothing wanting in her pleasure. To be allowed to go
to Norton and sit like a real market-woman behind a real stall with scales
and paper bags and measures; to see the people come up and buy, and open
their purses and hand money to Tom or Aunt Emma, and then to see Tom or
Aunt Emma go to the cash-box and put in the money and take out the change,
was all wonderful and lovely enough, but to have her father there too made
everything quite perfect; and her only trouble was that so many hours had
to be lived through, somehow, before these wonderful things could happen.

After all, it was not so very long to wait. To the others the time was
all too short for all they had to do. There were fowls and ducks to pluck
and truss, and pack in the snow-white cloths in the