From out the dark interior stepped the girl, and the sunshine flashed over her, lighting her auburn hair, rich as burnished copper. She wore a green, scarlet, and yellow flowered kerchief, tied across her bosom, and knotted behind her back. Bound round her waist was a white apron.
She deigned no glance at the throng, but kept her eyes fixed on her father's face.
'Are you better, dad?' she asked in a low tone.
'Not much, Zit. But I'll go through with it.'
'Here we are now!' shouted the Jack, after he had drawn the sleeve of his left arm across his brow and lips, that were bathed in perspiration. And yet the weather was cold; the season was the end of October, and the occasion of the visit of the van to Ely was Tawdry (St. Etheldreda's) Fair.
A whisper and nudges passed among the young men crowded about the van.
'Ain't she just a stunner?'
'I say, I wish the Cheap Jack would put up the girl to sale. Wouldn't there be bidding?'
'She's the finest thing about the caravan.'
Such were comments that flew from one to another.