“And then I did go wi’ Tom in the swings, and then we did all have a game at Aunt Sally, and I did win; and ’Neas gi’ed me a bagful o’ ginger-nuts, and Tom a box for pins, and Annie’s young man come sidlin’ up too, and says he, ‘I must gi’e ye something too, Maria, for I do think,’ says he, ‘as you be queen of the fair’. And he did buy me a lot o’ sticky sweet stuff as I took one bite on and then dropped when he weren’t a-lookin’. But ye should ha’ seed Annie’s face. ‘I think I’ll go and look for John,’ says she, and her two eyes did shine much like cat’s eyes in the dark; but she didn’t go arter John, all the same.
“Well, we did come at last to one o’ the booths where they were a-sellin’ china stuff: mugs, and vases, and teapots, and cups, and plates, and as we stopped to look at ’em the old woman as was a-sellin’ did hold up the rosy plate, and says she to I, ‘Do ’ee buy en, my maid. The flowers be jist the same colour as they purty cheeks o’ yourn. You be a real rose, for sure,’ she did say, ‘and you did ought to have the rosy plate.’
“I put my hand in my pocket, and pulled out my handkercher, for I’d a-tied up my dibs in the corner. My mother did gi’e me eightpence to buy fairin’s wi’, but I hadn’t naught but a ha’penny left.
“‘That’s all I have,’ says I, holdin’ it up and laughin’; ‘will ye sell it me for that?’
“‘Nay now,’ says the old woman; ‘this here plate do cost a shillin’.’
“Well, everybody knows, of course, as these here folks do always ax twice so much as they’re willin’ to take; so Tom laughed, and says he:
“‘Come, I’ll gi’e ye sixpence for ’t.’
“‘Nay,’ says ’Neas, steppin’ up, ‘I’m the man as must give the rose o’ Shroton Fair the rosy plate.’
“So Rose Paddock did begin to smile and to smirk, and to think it were she as he meant; but I knowed very well it were me.
“‘The rose o’ the fair,’ says ’Neas, ‘must have a rosy plate for to match the roses on her cheeks and the roses on her frock.’ And poor Rose did look sour, for her frock was brown all over, wi’ jist a bunch o’ blue ribbons at the neck.