“Isel, have you de one pound? Look, here is one,” said Agnes timidly, holding out her hand.
“But you want that, my dear.”
“No, I can do widout. I will de gown up-mend dat I have now. Take you de money; I have left for de shoes and flannel.”
She did not add that the flannel would have to be cut down, as well as the new dress resigned.
“And I can do very well without a hood,” added Ermine quickly. “We must help Mother Isel all we can.”
“My dears, I don’t half like taking it.”
“We have taken more from you,” said Ermine.
Thus urged, Isel somewhat reluctantly took the money, and bought one rug, for which she beat down the clothier to two marks and a half, and departed triumphant, this being her best bargain for the day. It was then in England, as it yet is in Eastern lands, an understood thing that all tradesmen asked extortionate prices, and must be offered less as a matter of course: a fact which helps to the comprehension of the Waldensian objection to trade as involving falsehood.
Isel returned to Agnes the change which remained out of her pound, which enabled her to get all the flannel she needed. Their baskets being now well filled, Isel and her party turned homewards, sauntering slowly through the fair, partly because the crowd prevented straightforward walking, but partly also because they wished to see as much as they could. Haimet was to bring a hand-cart for the meat and other heavy purchases at a later hour.
Derette, who for safety’s sake was foremost of the girls, directly following her mother and Agnes, trudged along with her basket full of slippers, and her head full of profound meditation. Had Isel known the nature of those meditations, she certainly would never have lingered at the silversmiths’ stalls in a comfortable frame of mind, pointing out to her companions various pretty things which took her fancy. But she had not the remotest idea of her youngest daughter’s private thoughts, and she turned away from Gloucester Green at last, quite ignorant of the fashion wherein her feelings of all sorts were about to be outraged.