“What for?” asked Isel, in a rather annoyed tone.
“‘What for?’” Anania lifted up her hands. “There now!—if I didn’t think she would just go and deceive you! She can’t have told you the truth, of course, or you could never pass it by in that light way.”
“If you mean her visit to the Castle,” said Isel in a careless tone, “she told us all about it, of course, when she got back.”
“And you take it as coolly as that?”
“How did you wish me to take it? The thing is done, and all’s well that ends well. I don’t see that it was so much out of the way, for my part. Derette got no harm, and Agnes has a nice new gown, and nobody the worse. If anybody has a right to complain, it is the Countess; and I can’t see that she has so much, either; for she needn’t have given the robe if she hadn’t liked.”
“Oh, she’s no business to grumble; she has lots more of every thing. She could have twenty robes made like that to-morrow, if she wanted them. I wish I’d half as many—I know that!”
Agnes came down the ladder at that moment, carrying one of her new tunics, which she had just tried on, and was now going to alter to fit herself.
“That’s it, is it?” exclaimed Anania in an interested voice. “I thought it was that one. Well, you are in luck! That’s one of her newest robes, I do believe. Ah, folks that have more money than they know what to do with, can afford to do aught they fancy. But to think of throwing away such a thing as that on you!”
Neither words nor tone were flattering, but the incivility dropped harmless from the silver armour of Agnes’s lowly simplicity.
“Oh, but it shall not away be t’rown,” she said gently; “I will dem all up-make, and wear so long as they will togeder hold. I take care of dat, so shall you see!”