“Come yon. I’ve that I will show you. ’Tis your mother’s own lovely clothes. Just as she wore them here, and carefully folded away for you till you needed them. Well, that is now, I suppose, if you’re to be let gad all over the earth, with as good a home as girl ever had right here in the peaceful woods.”
“Oh! show them to me, Angelique. Quick. Why have you never before? Of course, I shall need them now. And, Angelique! That is some more of the beautiful plan. The working out of the pattern. Else why should there be the clothes here when I need clothes? Answer me that, good Angelique, if you can.”
“Pst. ’Twas always a bothersome child for questions. But answer one yourself. If you had had them before would you have had them ready now, and the pleasure of them? No. No, indeed. But come. The clothes and then the churnin’. If that Pierre were here, ’twould not be my arms would have to ache this night with the dash, dash, dashin’. No. No, indeed, no. But come.”
Alas! Of all the carefully preserved and dainty garments there was not one which Margot could wear.
“Why, Angelique! What a tiny thing she must have been! I can’t get even my hand through the wrist of this sleeve. And look here. This skirt is away up as short as my own. If I’ve to wear short ones I’ll not change at all. In the pictures, I’ve seen lovely ladies with skirts on the ground and I thought that was the way I should look if I ever went into the world.”
“Eh? What? Lovely? You? Hmm. Lovely is that lovely does. Vanity is a disgrace to any woman. Has not the master said that often and often?”
Margot flushed. She was not conscious of vanity, yet she did not question Angelique’s opinion. But she rallied.
“I don’t think I should feel at all vain if I put on any of these things. That is, if I could even get them on. I should all the time be thinking how uncomfortable I was. Well, that’s settled. I wear my own clothes, and not even my dear mother’s. Hers I will always keep for her sake; but to her great daughter they are useless. And I’ll go bareheaded just as here. Why not? I certainly don’t need a bonnet, with all this hair.”
Now Margot’s hair was Angelique’s especial pride. Indeed, it was a wonderful glory upon that shapely young head; but again this was not to be admitted.