'Yes,' she said, 'I have got all the measures.'
'And oh, mamma,' asked Biddy, too full of her own ideas to notice these mysterious sayings, 'will you go to Pier Street and let us show you where Celestina lives. And if you could think of something you wanted to buy, just any little thing, a pencil or some envelopes or anything—they've got everything—we might go into the shop, and I daresay if the nice mamma saw you, she'd ask you to step into the parlour too.'
'We shall see,' mamma replied.
But 'We shall see' was this time accompanied by a little smile, which made Bridget think that the 'We shall see' was perhaps a way of saying 'Yes.'
Mamma had several messages to do at Seacove, and though Biddy was in a great hurry to get to Pier Street, she was rather interested in the other shops also. At the draper's, Mrs. Vane made some small purchases, as to which Alie showed great concern. One was of pretty pink glazed calico and of some other shiny stuff called 'chintz'—white, with tiny lines of different colours; she also bought some red cotton velvet and neat-looking white spotted muslin, and several yards of very narrow lace of a very small and dainty pattern, and other things, all of which interested Alie very much indeed, though after a while Biddy got tired of looking on, and went and stood at the doorway of the shop.
'I am sorry to give you the trouble of taking down so many things when I only want such a short length of each,' said Mrs. Vane civilly to the shopman—or shopwoman, I think it was. 'But the fact is I am buying all these odds and ends for my little girl's'—and here she glanced round to make sure that Bridget was out of hearing—'for my little girl's doll-house, which needs doing up;' by which information Mrs. Cutter, the draper's wife, was much edified, repeating it to her special cronies at Seacove, together with her opinion that the new rector's wife was a most pleasant-spoken lady.
One or two other shops Mrs. Vane and Rosalys went into; a paper-hanger's for one, or rather a painter's, where wall-papers were sold; and an iron-monger's, where she bought two or three different kinds of small nails, tin tacks, and neat little brass-headed nails. Bridget stayed at the door of both these shops: she thought them not at all interesting, and mamma and Alie did not press her to come in. The little girl was in a great fidget to get to Pier Street, and stood murmuring to herself that she didn't believe they'd ever come; Alie might make mamma be quick, she knew how she, Biddy, wanted to see Celestina and her dolls' room.
'But nobody cares about what I want,' she added to herself, with the discontented look on her face which so spoilt its round rosy pleasantness.
Just then out came Mrs. Vane and Alie. They both looked pleased and bright, and this made Biddy still crosser.
'Well, now,' said her mother consideringly, 'is that all, Alie? Yes—I think it is. I must call at the grocer's on the way home, but I think we pass that way. No—I don't remember anything else.'