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.’