“Mr Buckle, he’s goin’ to drive us over in his gig,” said Agnetta. “My I shan’t we cut a dash? Bella, she’s goin’ to wear her black silk done up. We’ve washed it with beer and it rustles beautiful just like a new one. And she’s got a hat turned up on one side and trimmed with Gobelin.”
“What’s that?” asked Lilac, very much interested.
“It’s the new blue, silly,” answered Agnetta disdainfully. Then she added: “My new parasol’s got lace all round it, ever so deep. I expect we shall be about the most stylish girls there. Won’t Charlotte Smith stare!”
“I s’pose it’s summat like a fair, isn’t it?” asked Lilac.
“Lor’, no!” exclaimed Agnetta; “not a bit. Not near so vulgar. There’s a balloon, and a promnarde, and fireworks in the evening.”
All these things sounded mysteriously splendid to Lilac’s unaccustomed ears. She did not know what any of them meant, but they seemed all the more attractive.
“You’ve got to be so sober and old-fashioned like,” continued Agnetta, “that I s’pose you wouldn’t care to go even if you could, would you? You’d rather stop at home and work.”
“I’d like to go,” answered Lilac; “but Molly couldn’t never get through with the work to-morrow if we was all to go. There’s a whole lot to do.”
“Oh, of course you couldn’t go,” said Agnetta loftily. “Bella and me’s different. We’re on a different footing.”
Agnetta had heard her mother use this expression, and though she would have been puzzled to explain it, it gave her an agreeable sense of superiority to her cousin.