now what
to do with, can afford to do aught they fancy. But to think of throwing
away such a thing as that on _you_!"

Neither words nor tone were flattering, but the incivility dropped
harmless from the silver armour of Agnes's lowly simplicity.

"Oh, but it shall not away be t'rown," she said gently; "I will dem all
up-make, and wear so long as they will togeder hold. I take care of
dat, so shall you see!"

Anania looked on with envious eyes.

"How good lady must de Countess be!" added Agnes.

"Oh, she can be good to folks sometimes," snarled Anania. "She's just
as full of whims as she can be--all those great folks are--proud and
stuck-up and crammed full of caprice: but they say she's kind where she
_takes_, you know. It just depends whether she takes to you. She never
took to me, worse luck! I might have had that good robe, if she had."

"I shouldn't think she would," suddenly observed the smallest voice in
the company.

"What do you mean by that, you impudent child?"

"Because, Cousin Anania, I don't think there's much in you to take to."

Derette's prominent feeling at that moment was righteous indignation.
She could not bear to hear the gentle, gracious lady, who had treated
her with such unexpected kindness, accused of being proud and full of
whims, apparently for no better reason than because she had not "taken
to" Anania--a state of things which Derette thought most natural and
probable. Her sense of justice--and a child's sense of justice is often
painfully keen--was outraged by Anania's sentiments.

"Well, to be sure! How high and mighty we are! That comes of visiting
Countesses, I suppose.--Aunt Isel, I told you that child was getting
insufferable. There'll be no bearing her very soon. She's as stuck-up
now as a peacock. Just look at her!"

"I don't see that she looks different from usual," said Isel, who was
mixing the ingredients for a "bag-pudding."

Anania made that slight click with her tongue which conveys the idea of
despairing compassion for the pitiable incapacity of somebody to
perceive patent facts.

Isel went on with her pudding, and offered no further remark.

"Well, I suppose I'd better be going," said Anania--and sat still.

Nobody contradicted her, but she made no effort to go, until Osbert
stopped at the half-door and looked in.

"Oh, you're there, are you?" he said to his wife. "I don't know whether
you care particularly for those buttons you bought from Vek