"Is your niece at home, Miss Hallet?"
"No. She's gone to Stilborough. How are you, Harriet?"
"Oh, I'm all right, thank you. What a cliff this is to climb up!--a'most takes one's breath away. Gone to Stilborough, is she? Well, that's a bother!"
"What did you want with her?"
"Has she done any of them han'kerchers, do you know?" returned the young woman, without replying to the direct question.
"I can't say. I know she has begun them. Would you like to come in and sit down?"
"I've no time for sitting down. My missis has sent me off here on the spur of the moment: and when she sends one out on an errand for herself one had best not linger, you know. Besides, I must get back to dress my ladies."
"Oh, must you," indifferently remarked Miss Hallet; who rarely evinced curiosity as to her neighbours' doings, or encouraged gossip upon trifles.
"They are all going off to a dinner party at Stilborough; and missis took it into her head just now that she'd use one of her new fine cambric han'kerchers," continued Harriet. "So she sent me off here to get one."
"But Mrs. Castlemaine is surely not short of fine handkerchiefs!" cried Miss Hallet.