He felt himself trembling.
"But Mrs. Leadbatter told me she wouldn't let you do any more work."
"I told missus that I must; I told her she couldn't get another girl before Monday, if then, and if she didn't let me I wouldn't buy a new dress and a pair of boots with her sovereign—it isn't suvrin, is it, sir?"
"No," murmured Lancelot, smiling in spite of himself.
"With her sovereign. And I said I would be all dirty on Monday."
"But what can you get for a sovereign?" he asked irrelevantly. He felt his mind wandering away from him.
"Oh, ever such a pretty dress!"
The picture of Mary Ann in a pretty dress painted itself upon the darkness. How lovely the child would look in some creamy white evening dress with a rose in her hair. He wondered that in all his thoughts of their future he had never dressed her up thus in fancy, to feast his eyes on the vision.
"And so the vicar will find you in a pretty dress," he said at last.
"No, sir."