“Yes, Dally, it is Miss Mary I want to see,” sighed Mrs Berens; and then, as much out of genuine kindness as with the idea of making a friend at the Rectory: “How pretty, and young, and well you do look, Dally!”
“Thank ye, ma’am,” said Dally, with a distant bob, but gratified all the same.
“Do you know, Dally, I’ve got a silk dress, a pale red, that would make up so nicely for you? It isn’t old, but I shall not wear it any more.”
Daily’s eyes sparkled at pale red silk.
“It wouldn’t fit you,” continued the widow, “but you could make it up nicely with your clever little fingers;” and she compared her own redundant charms with the trim, tight little figure of the maid.
“Thank ye, ma’am. May I come for it?”
“Yes, Dally, do. Now show me in to Miss Mary.”
Dally ushered in the widow, and then stood in the passage thinking.
“I wouldn’t go for it, that I wouldn’t, if I was quite sure. I don’t want to wear her old dresses. Nice thing for a lady who’s going to have a title and live up at the Hall to have to wear somebody else’s old silk frocks.
“I think I’ll go, though,” said Dally. “No, I won’t, for it’s coming to a nice blow up for some one I know, and I’ll let ’em all see.”