“That’s not while to-morrow,” said Mrs Clere in the same sarcastic tone. “She’s giving the lecture at home first, to get perfect. I promise you I’m just harried out of my life, what with one thing and another!”
“Well, I’d like to speak with Bessy, if I might,” said Rose in some perplexity. “We’ve always been friends, Bessy and me; and maybe she’d listen to me—or, any ways, to Mother. Could you kindly give leave for her to come, Mistress Clere?”
“You may have her, and keep her, for all the good she is to me,” answered the clothier’s wife, moving away. “Mind she doesn’t give you the malady, Rose Allen: that’s all I say! It’s a fair infection going about, and the great doctors up to London ’ll have to come down and look to it—see if they don’t! Oh, my lady can go if it like her—she’s so grand now o’ days I’m very nigh afeared of her. Good-morrow!”
And Rose went out with her parcel, lost in wonder as to what could be the matter—first with Mistress Clere, and then with her friend Elizabeth.
Chapter Seven.
The Clouds begin to gather.
“Methinks that becomes me better. What sayest thou, Bess?”
Two girls were standing in an upper room of Nicholas Clere’s house, and the younger asked this question of the elder. The elder girl was tall, of stately carriage and graceful mien, with a very beautiful face: but her whole aspect showed that she thought nothing about herself, and never troubled her head to think whether she was pretty or ugly. The younger, who was about seventeen, was not nearly so handsome; but she would have been pleasant enough to look at if it had not been for a silly simper and a look of intensely satisfied vanity, which quite spoiled any prettiness that she might have had. She had just fastened a pair of ear-rings into her ears, and she was turning her head from one side to the other before the mirror, as she asked her companion’s opinion of the ornaments.