"Oh, who knows? It costs much. That must be the reason. Besides, it does not go down. I should not care for it."
"It is a habit." Dalrymple drank. "In my country most of the people eat oats," he said, as he set down his glass.
"Oats!" laughed the girl. "Like horses! But horses will eat meat, too, like you. As for me—good bread, fresh cheese, a little salad, a drink of wine and water—that is enough."
"Like the nuns," observed Dalrymple, attacking the ham of the 'Grape-eater.'
"Oh, the nuns! They live on boiled cabbage! You can smell it a mile away. But they make good cakes."
"You often go to the convent, do you not?" asked the Scotchman, filling his glass, for the first mouthful of ham made him thirsty again. "You take the linen up with your mother, I know."
"Sometimes, when I feel like going," answered the girl, willing to show that it was not her duty to carry baskets. "I only go when we have the small baskets that one can carry on one's head. I will tell you. They use the small baskets for the finer things, the abbess's linen, and the altar cloths, and the chaplain's lace, which belongs to the nuns. But the sheets and the table linen are taken up in baskets as long as a man. It takes four women to carry one of them."
"That must be very inconvenient," said Dalrymple. "I should think that smaller ones would always be better."
"Who knows? It has always been so. And when it has always been so, it will always be so—one knows that."
Annetta nodded her head rhythmically to convey an impression of the immutability of all ancient customs and of this one in particular.