"Girls, girls, what are you doing? No gossiping there."
Florence came out looking cross, and observing in a marked manner that Miss Fuller, at Ellerby, always spoke of her young ladies.
"I like using right names," said Aunt Rose in her decided voice.
Florence was silenced for the time, but at the dinner hour she contrived to get Amy alone. Jessie was in haste to get home to see if there were an answer from Miss Needwood, and also to try to get enough sewing done to pacify Grace, and purchase a little leisure for her mother. And Florence, instead of going home, stood with Amy, who had sauntered into the garden to refresh herself and gather some parsley.
"I assure you, Amy, he was quite struck. He said yours was such a style that he would hardly believe me when I said you belonged to Mr. Lee, the baker. It was the refinement, he said."
"Nonsense, Florence; don't," said Amy, blushing as crimson as the rose she tried to gather.
"I'm not talking nonsense; I never did see a poor man so smitten."
"Now, Florence, you shouldn't say such things; father and aunts would not like it. I shall go in."
"Fathers and aunts are all alike; they never do like such things. But——"
However, Amy was safe indoors by this time, all in a glow, very much ashamed that such things should have been said to her, and yet not a little fluttered and pleased. She had been most carefully brought up and watched over, and she had come to the age of sixteen without hearing more about herself than that a young lady, who once came into the school with Miss Agnes Manners, said something that sounded like lovely, and was speedily hushed up and silenced.