“Maybe not, but she might have helped taking the saint-pox,” said Molly. “I believe she caught it from you,” nodding at Phoebe. “But what vexed Mum most was that the grey goose actually made believe to be pleased when she lost her chance of the tinsel. Trust me, but Mum blew her up—a little! All leather and prunella, you know, of course. Pleased to be an old maid!—just think, what nonsense. She will be an old maid now, sure as eggs are eggs, unless she marries some conventicle preacher. That would be the best end of her, I should think.”
Phoebe sat wondering why Molly paid so poor a compliment to her own denomination as to suppose that the natural gravitation of piety was towards Dissent. But Molly’s volatile nature passed to a different subject the next moment.
“I say, old Roadside, bring a white gown. The Queen’s coming to the Bath, and a lot of folks are trying to make her come on to Berkeley; and if she do, a whole parcel of young gentlewomen are to be there to courtesy to her, and give her a posy, and all that sort of flummery. And Mum says she’ll send us down, if they do it.”
“Who’s to give the posy?” eagerly asked Rhoda.
“Don’t know. Not you. You won’t have a chance, old Fid-fad. No more shan’t I. It’ll be some thing of quality. I’ll tread on her tail, though,—see if I don’t.”
“Whose?” whispered Rhoda; for Molly’s last remark had been confidential. “You don’t mean the Queen?”
“Of course I do,—who better? Her grandmother was a baronet’s daughter; what else am I? I’ll have a snip of her gown, if I can.”
“O Molly!” exclaimed Rhoda in unfeigned horror.
“Why not? I’ve scissors in my pocket.”
“Molly, you never could!”