“Look here,” said Annie, “I’m not going to be afraid of you. I have no more silver to give you. If you like, you may go up to the house and tell what you have seen. I am very unhappy, and whether you tell or not can make very little difference to me now. Good-night; I am not the least afraid of you—you can do just as you please about telling Mrs Willis.”
“Eh, my dear?” said the gypsy; “do you think I’d work you any harm—you, and the seven other dear little ladies? No, not for the world, my dear—not for the world. You don’t know Mother Rachel when you think she’d be that mean.”
“Well, don’t come here again,” said Annie. “Good-night.”
She turned on her heel, and Nan shouted back—
“Go ’way, naughty woman—Nan don’t love ’oo, ’tall, ’tall.”
The gypsy stood still for a moment with a frown knitting her brows; then she slowly turned, and, creeping on all-fours through the underwood, climbed the hedge into the field beyond.
“Oh, no,” she laughed, after a moment; “the little Missy thinks she ain’t afraid of me; but she be. Trust Mother Rachel for knowing that much. I make no doubt,” she added after a pause, “that the little one’s clothes are trimmed with real lace. Well, little Missie Annie Forest, I can see with half an eye that you set store by that baby-girl. You had better not cross Mother Rachel’s whims, or she can punish you in a way you don’t think of.”