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 equal division.

Each girl wore tightly-fitting stockings, knit by her own hands, of the blue worsted common in that country; they had on neat high-heeled black leather shoes, coming well over the instep, and fastened as well as ornamented with bright steel buckles.  They did not walk so lightly and freely now as they did before they were shod, but their steps were still springy with the buoyancy of early youth; for neither of them was twenty, indeed I believe Sylvia was not more than seventeen at this time.

They clambered up the steep grassy path, with brambles catching at their kilted petticoats, through the copse-wood, till they regained the high road; and then they ‘settled themselves,’ as they called it; that is to say, they took off their black felt hats, and tied up their clustering hair afresh; they shook off every speck of wayside dust; straightened the little shawls (or large neck-kerchiefs, call them which you will) that were spread over their shoulders, pinned below the throat, and confined at the waist by their apron-strings; and then putting on their hats again, and picking up their baskets, they prepared to walk decorously into the town of Monkshaven.