The Kings Daughters | Page 2

Alice's, it
seemed to try her strength much more.
"Good den, neighbour!" said Alice, with a pleasant smile.
"Good den, Alice. I looked not to find you here. What come you after?"
"A piece of kersey for my bettermost gown this summer. What seek
you?"
"Well, I want some linsey for mine. Go you on, and when you've made
an end I'll ask good Master Clere to show me some, without Mistress
Clere's at liberty sooner."
Alice Mount was soon satisfied. She bought ten yards of the brown
kersey, with some black buckram to line it, and then, as those will who
have time to spare, and not much to occupy their thoughts, she turned
her attention to helping Margaret Thurston to choose her gown. But it
was soon seen that Margaret was not an easy woman to satisfy. She
would have striped linsey; no, she wouldn't, she would have a self
colour; no, she wouldn't, she would have a little pattern; lastly, she did
not know which to have! What did Master Clere think? or what would
Alice recommend her?
Master Clere calmly declined to think anything about it.
"Take it or leave it," said he. "You'll have to do one or t'other. Might as
well do it first as last."
Margaret turned from one piece to another with a hopelessly perplexed

face. There were three lying before her; a plain brown, a very dark
green with a pretty little pattern, and a delicate grey, striped with a
darker shade of the same colour.
"Brown's usefullest, maybe," said she in an uncertain tone. "Green's
none so bad, though. And that grey's proper pretty--it is a
gentlewoman's gown. I'd like that grey."
The grey was undoubtedly ladylike, but it was only fit for a lady, not
for a working man's wife who had cooking and cleaning to do. A week
of such work would ruin it past repair.
"You have the brown, neighbour," said Alice. "It's not the prettiest,
maybe, but it 'll look the best when it's been used a while. That grey 'll
never stand nought; and the green, though it's better, 'll not wear even
to the brown. You have the brown now."
Still Margaret was undecided. She appealed to Mrs Clere.
"Why, look you," responded that talkative lady, "if you have yonder
green gown, you can don it of an even when your master comes home
from work, and he'll be main pleased to see you a-sitting in the cottage
door with your bit o' needlework, in a pretty green gown."
"Ay, so he will!" said Margaret, suddenly making up as much mind as
she had. "I thank you Mistress Clere. I'll have the green, Master Clere,
an' it please you."
Now, Alice Mount had offered a reason for choosing the brown dress,
and Mrs Clere had only drawn a picture; but Margaret was the sort of
woman to be influenced by a picture much more than by a solid reason.
So the green linsey was cut off and rolled up--not in paper: that was
much too precious to be wasted on parcels of common things. It was
only tied with string, and each woman taking her own package, the two
friends were about to leave the shop, when it occurred to Mrs Mount to
ask a question.
"So you've got Bessy Foulkes at last, Mistress Clere?"

"Ay, we have, Alice," was the answer. "And you might have said, `at
long last,' trow. Never saw a maid so hard to come by. I could have got
twenty as good maids as she to hire themselves, while Bess was
thinking on it."
"She should be worth somewhat, now you have her, if she took such
work to come by," observed Margaret Thurston.
"Oh, well, she'll do middling. She's a stirring maid over her work: but
she's mortal quiet, she is. Not a word can you get out of her without 'tis
needed. And for a young maid of nineteen, you know, that's strange
fashions."
"Humph!" said Master Nicholas, rolling up some woollen
handkerchiefs. "The world 'd do with another or twain of that fashion."
"Now, Nicholas, you can't say you get too much talk!" exclaimed his
wife turning round. "Why Amy and me, we're as quiet as a couple of
mice from morning till night. Aren't we now?"
"Can't I?" said Nicholas, depositing the handkerchiefs on a shelf.
"Well, any way, you've got no call to it. Nobody can say I talk too
much, that I know: nor yet Amy."
"You know, do you?" said her husband coolly. "Well, then, I need not
to say it."
"Now, neighbours, isn't that too bad?" demanded Mrs Clere, as
Nicholas moved away to attend to another customer. "I never was a
rattle, not I. But 'tis right like men: they take in