The Kings Daughters | Page 2

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 their heads that all women be talkers, and be as still as you will, they shall write you down a chatterbox. Well, now, can't I tempt you with nought more? Stockings, or kerchiefs, or a knitted cap? Well, then, good den. I don't so well like the look of them clouds yonder; we shall have rain afore