“No one ’ud think,” said Agnetta as the girls entered the meadow again, “as Peter was Bella’s and Gusta’s and my brother. He’s so dreadful vulgar-lookin’ dressed like that. He might be a common ploughboy, and his manners is awful.”
“Are they?” said Lilac.
“Pa won’t hear a word against him,” continued Agnetta, “cause he’s so useful with the farm work. He says he’d rather see Peter drive a straight furrow than dress himself smart. But Bella and me we’re ashamed to be seen with him, we can’t neither of us abide commoners.”
Common! there was the word again which seemed to mean so many things and yet was so difficult to understand. Common things were evidently vulgar. The pigs were common, Peter was common, perhaps Lilac herself was common in Agnetta’s eyes. “And yet,” she reflected, lifting her gaze from the yellow carpet at her feet to the flowering orchards, “the cherry blossoms and the buttercups are common too; would Agnetta call them vulgar?”
She had not long to think about this, for her cousin soon introduced another and a very interesting subject.
“Who’s goin’ to be Queen this year, I wonder?” she said; “there’ll be a sight of flowers if the weather keeps all on so fine.”
“It’ll be you, Agnetta, for sure,” answered Lilac; “I know lots who mean to choose you this time.”
“I dessay,” said Agnetta with an air of lofty indifference.
“Don’t you want to be?” asked Lilac.
The careless tone surprised her, for to be chosen Queen of the May was not only an honour, but a position of importance and splendour. It meant to march at the head of a long procession of children, in a white dress, to be crowned with flowers in the midst of gaiety and rejoicing, to lead the dance round the maypole, and to be first throughout a day of revelry and feasting. To Lilac it was the most beautiful of ceremonies to see the Queen crowned; to join in it was a delight, but to be chosen Queen herself would be a height of bliss she could hardly imagine. It was impossible therefore, to think her cousin really indifferent, and indeed this was very far from the case, for Agnetta had set her heart on being Queen, and felt tolerably sure that she should get the greatest number of votes this year.