Sylvias Lovers | Page 6

of them she
knew she was sure of a good 'rating' from her mother. The number of
them made her pocket-handkerchief look like one of the nine-tails of a
'cat;' but not a single thing was for herself, nor, indeed, for any one
individual of her numerous family. There was neither much thought nor
much money to spend for any but collective wants in the Corney
family.
It was different with Sylvia. She was going to choose her first cloak,
not to have an old one of her mother's, that had gone down through two
sisters, dyed for the fourth time (and Molly would have been glad had
even this chance been hers), but to buy a bran-new duffle cloak all for
herself, with not even an elder authority to curb her as to price, only
Molly to give her admiring counsel, and as much sympathy as was
consistent with a little patient envy of Sylvia's happier circumstances.
Every now and then they wandered off from the one grand subject of
thought, but Sylvia, with unconscious art, soon brought the
conversation round to the fresh consideration of the respective merits of
gray and scarlet. These girls were walking bare-foot and carrying their
shoes and stockings in their hands during the first part of their way; but
as they were drawing near Monkshaven they stopped, and turned aside
along a foot-path that led from the main-road down to the banks of the
Dee. There were great stones in the river about here, round which the
waters gathered and eddied and formed deep pools. Molly sate down on
the grassy bank to wash her feet; but Sylvia, more active (or perhaps
lighter-hearted with the notion of the cloak in the distance), placed her
basket on a gravelly bit of shore, and, giving a long spring, seated

herself on a stone almost in the middle of the stream. Then she began
dipping her little rosy toes in the cool rushing water and whisking them
out with childish glee.
'Be quiet, wi' the', Sylvia? Thou'st splashing me all ower, and my
feyther'll noane be so keen o' giving me a new cloak as thine is,
seemingly.'
Sylvia was quiet, not to say penitent, in a moment. She drew up her feet
instantly; and, as if to take herself out of temptation, she turned away
from Molly to that side of her stony seat on which the current ran
shallow, and broken by pebbles. But once disturbed in her play, her
thoughts reverted to the great subject of the cloak. She was now as still
as a minute before she had been full of frolic and gambolling life. She
had tucked herself up on the stone, as if it had been a cushion, and she a
little sultana.
Molly was deliberately washing her feet and drawing on her stockings,
when she heard a sudden sigh, and her companion turned round so as to
face her, and said,
'I wish mother hadn't spoken up for t' gray.'
'Why, Sylvia, thou wert saying as we topped t'brow, as she did nought
but bid thee think twice afore settling on scarlet.'
'Ay! but mother's words are scarce, and weigh heavy. Feyther's liker me,
and we talk a deal o' rubble; but mother's words are liker to hewn stone.
She puts a deal o' meaning in 'em. And then,' said Sylvia, as if she was
put out by the suggestion, 'she bid me ask cousin Philip for his opinion.
I hate a man as has getten an opinion on such-like things.'
'Well! we shall niver get to Monkshaven this day, either for to sell our
eggs and stuff, or to buy thy cloak, if we're sittin' here much longer. T'
sun's for slanting low, so come along, lass, and let's be going.'
'But if I put on my stockings and shoon here, and jump back into yon
wet gravel, I 'se not be fit to be seen,' said Sylvia, in a pathetic tone of

bewilderment, that was funnily childlike. She stood up, her bare feet
curved round the curving surface of the stone, her slight figure
balancing as if in act to spring.
'Thou knows thou'll have just to jump back barefoot, and wash thy feet
afresh, without making all that ado; thou shouldst ha' done it at first,
like me, and all other sensible folk. But thou'st getten no gumption.'
Molly's mouth was stopped by Sylvia's hand. She was already on the
river bank by her friend's side.
'Now dunnot lecture me; I'm none for a sermon hung on every peg o'
words. I'm going to have a new cloak, lass, and I cannot heed thee if
thou dost lecture. Thou shall have all the gumption, and I'll have my
cloak.'
It may be doubted whether Molly thought this an