'Does she get good pay?' asked the girl eagerly.
'I don't know,' replied Lucy shortly.
'Because, if there's good pay,' said the other, examining the work again closely, 'I'd soon learn it—why I'd learn it in a week, you see! If I stay here I shan't get no more silk-weaving. And of course I'll stay. I'm just sick of the country. I'd have come up long ago if I'd known where to find Davy.'
'I'm ready,' said Dora in a constrained voice beside her.
Louie Grieve looked up at her.
'Oh, you needn't look so glum!—I haven't hurt it. I'm used to good things, stuffs at two guineas a yard, and the like of that. What money do you take a week?' and she pointed to the frame.
Something in the tone and manner made the question specially offensive. Dora pretended not to hear it.
'Shall we go now?' she said, hurriedly covering her precious work up from those sacrilegious fingers and putting it away.
'Lucy, you ought to be going home.'
'Well, I will directly,' said Lucy. 'Don't you bother about me.'