“Bargain! Me, ma’am!” cried Lydia Sharpe, as Mrs. Falconer left the room; “I am the worst creature extant at bargaining, especially with ladies. But any thing I can do certainly to accommodate, I shall, I’m sure, be happy.”
“Well, then,” said Miss Georgiana, “if you take this white satin off my hands, Lydia, I am sure I shall be happy.”
“I have no objection, ma’am—that is, I’m in duty bound to make no manner of objections,” said Lydia, with a very sentimental air, hanging her head aside, and with one finger rubbing her under-lip slowly, as she contemplated the white satin, which her young mistress held up for sale. “I am really scrupulous—but you’re sensible, Miss Georgiana, that your white satin is so all frayed with the crape sleeves. Lady Trant recommended—”
“Only a very little frayed.”
“But in the front breadth, ma’am; you know that makes a world of difference, because there’s no hiding, and with satin no turning—and not a bit neither to new body.”
“The body is perfectly good.”
“I beg pardon for observing, but you know, ma’am, you noticed yourself how it was blacked and soiled by wearing under your black lace last time, and that you could not wear it again on that account.”
“I!—but you—”
“To be sure, ma’am, there’s a great deal of difference between I and you: only when one comes to bargaining—”
She paused, seeing wrath gathering black and dire in her young lady’s countenance; before it burst, she changed her tone, and continued, “All I mean to say, ma’am, is, that white satin being a style of thing I could not pretend to think of wearing in any shape myself, I could only take it to part with again, and in the existing circumstances, I’m confident I should lose by it. But rather than disoblige, I’ll take it at whatever you please.”