“Yes, to be sure,” said Mrs. Irwine.  “Well, Bessy, here is your prize—­excellent warm things for winter.  I’m sure you have had hard work to win them this warm day.”

Bessy’s lip fell as she saw the ugly, heavy gown—­which felt so hot and disagreeable too, on this July day, and was such a great ugly thing to carry.  She dropped her curtsies again, without looking up, and with a growing tremulousness about the corners of her mouth, and then turned away.

“Poor girl,” said Arthur; “I think she’s disappointed.  I wish it had been something more to her taste.”

“She’s a bold-looking young person,” observed Miss Lydia.  “Not at all one I should like to encourage.”

Arthur silently resolved that he would make Bessy a present of money before the day was over, that she might buy something more to her mind; but she, not aware of the consolation in store for her, turned out of the open space, where she was visible from the marquee, and throwing down the odious bundle under a tree, began to cry—­very much tittered at the while by the small boys.  In this situation she was descried by her discreet matronly cousin, who lost no time in coming up, having just given the baby into her husband’s charge.

“What’s the matter wi’ ye?” said Bess the matron, taking up the bundle and examining it.  “Ye’n sweltered yoursen, I reckon, running that fool’s race.  An’ here, they’n gi’en you lots o’ good grogram and flannel, as should ha’ been gi’en by good rights to them as had the sense to keep away from such foolery.  Ye might spare me a bit o’ this grogram to make clothes for the lad—­ye war ne’er ill-natured, Bess; I ne’er said that on ye.”

“Ye may take it all, for what I care,” said Bess the maiden, with a pettish movement, beginning to wipe away her tears and recover herself.

“Well, I could do wi’t, if so be ye want to get rid on’t,” said the disinterested cousin, walking quickly away with the bundle, lest Chad’s Bess should change her mind.

But that bonny-cheeked lass was blessed with an elasticity of spirits that secured her from any rankling grief; and by the time the grand climax of the donkey-race came on, her disappointment was entirely lost in the delightful excitement of attempting to stimulate the last donkey by hisses, while the boys applied the argument of sticks.  But the strength of the donkey mind lies in adopting a course inversely as the arguments urged, which, well considered, requires as great a mental force as the direct sequence; and the present donkey proved the first-rate order of his intelligence by coming to a dead standstill just when the blows were thickest.  Great was the shouting of the crowd, radiant the grinning of Bill Downes the stone-sawyer and the fortunate rider of this superior beast, which stood calm and stiff-legged in the midst of its triumph.