At Miss Blessington's stall trade is certainly very brisk; it is considered a fitting mark of respect to the family to buy their goods, and so the honest burgesses of Melford make it a point of honour to buy Miss Blessington's and Miss De Grey's blotting books and babies' socks in preference to anyone else's, however superior in fabric and less exorbitant in price anybody else's might be.
Miss Blessington has just sunk upon a chair, with an affectation of great fatigue, and is saying languidly, "If ever any one deserved the martyr's crown, that person is I; within the last ten minutes I have sold nine cushions and fifteen pairs of muffetees."
"There's plenty of cool tea and warm ices at the other end of the room, if you think they are likely to restore you," suggests Gerard, who is still leaning his elbow on the counter, and has not gone away as commanded.
"It makes one quite hot," pursues Miss Blessington, leaning back and fanning herself vigorously, "merely to look at Prissy Denzil rushing about like a Mæenad, worrying every one to put into raffles."
"Providence made a great mistake when it made that girl a lady," says St. John, following, with a look of half-disgust in his fastidious eyes, Priscilla's little dishevelled figure; "she would have been much happier haggling for halfpence at a huckster's stall."
The afternoon draws towards its close; people have come and bought, and raffled and gone again, carrying manifold ill-tied paper parcels with them. The farmeresses and yeomen's wives of the Melford district have departed, carrying with them, in their mind's eye, for imitation against next Sunday, the cut of Miss Blessington's skirt, and the profuse curls and bandeaux of Miss De Grey's intricate coiffure. The room is emptying, and the day's duty approaching its end.
"I say, old fellow," remarks Mr. De Grey, touching St. John on the shoulder as he leans against the wall, gazing somewhat morosely at his own boots, "don't you think we might as well be saying Ta-ta? I don't know what you have, but I have had nearly enough of this gay and festive scene."
"All right," answers the other, shaking off dull care; "I have put into exactly twenty-five raffles, and only got a christening robe and a squirt, so I think I may be supposed to have done my duty."
At the door there is a little confusion—carriages driving up, carriages driving away; a small crowd gathered to see the smart ladies; two policemen.
The Felton equipage and Mr. Gerard's T.-cart stand at some little distance down the street. St. John offers Esther his arm, and she, having no decent excuse for declining, takes it. As they walk along, he speaks to her hurriedly and not without temper. "If you have no special ground of quarrel against me—and Heaven knows why you should have—but feel only that weariness to which most women seem, in my society, to be more or less subject, be unselfish, and let me drive you home. I will not speak, neither need you, if you will have it so; there are many things more unsociable than absolute silence."