Essy's lowered eyelids had kept the stain of her tears. Her thick brown hair was loose and rumpled under her white cap. But she had put on a clean, starched apron. It stood out stiffly, billowing, from her waist. Essy had not always been so careless about her hair or so fastidious as to her aprons. There was a little strained droop at the corners of her tender mouth, as if they had been tied with string. Her dark eyes still kept their young largeness and their light, but they looked as if they had been drawn tight with string at their corners too.
All these signs the Vicar noted as he stared. And he hated Essy. He hated her for what he saw in her, and for her buxom comeliness, and for the softness of her youth.
"Did I hear young Greatorex round at the back door this evening?" he said.
Essy started, slanting her plate a little more.
"I doan knaw ef I knaw, sir."
"Either you know or you don't know," said the Vicar.
"I doan know, I'm sure, sir," said Essy.
The Vicar was holding out his hand for his glass of water, and Essy pushed the plate toward him, so blindly and at such a perilous slant that the glass slid and toppled over and broke itself against the Vicar's chair.
Essy gave a little frightened cry.
"Clever girl. She did that on purpose," said the Vicar to himself.