“You're a noble girl. You are that! Yet it's only what I should have expected of their child. I might ha' known you'd be a noble girl.”
“But you won't tell anybody?”
“Not if you'd rather I didn't. That proves your nobility! About how much would you like, my dear, to go on with?”
“Oh, twenty pounds.”
Mr. Teesdale drew the breeze in through the broken ranks of his teeth.
“Wouldn't—wouldn't ten do, my dear?”
“Ten? Let's think. No, I don't think I could do with a penny less than twenty. You see, a wave came into the cabin and spoilt all my things. I want everything new.”
“But I understood you had such a good voyage, Missy?”
“Not from me you didn't! Besides, it was my own fault: I gone and left the window open, and in came a sea. Didn't the captain kick up a shine! But I told him it was worse for me than for him; and look at the old duds I've got to go about in all because! Why, I look quite common—I know I do. No; I must have new before I come out to stay at the farm.”
“I'm sure our Arabella dresses simple,” the farmer was beginning; but Missy cut him short, and there was a spot of anger on each of her pale cheeks as she broke out: