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