Isel returned to Agnes the change which remained out of her pound, which enabled her to get all the flannel she needed. Their baskets being now well filled, Isel and her party turned homewards, sauntering slowly through the fair, partly because the crowd prevented straightforward walking, but partly also because they wished to see as much as they could. Haimet was to bring a hand-cart for the meat and other heavy purchases at a later hour. Derette, who for safety's sake was foremost of the girls, directly following her mother and Agnes, trudged along with her basket full of slippers, and her head full of profound meditation. Had Isel known the nature of those meditations, she certainly would never have lingered at the silversmiths' stalls in a comfortable frame of mind, pointing out to her companions various pretty things which took her fancy. But she had not the remotest idea of her youngest daughter's private thoughts, and she turned away from Gloucester Green at last, quite ignorant of the fashion wherein her feelings of all sorts were about to be outraged. Derette was determined to obtain a dress for Agnes. She had silently watched the kindly manner in which the good-natured German gave up the thing she really needed: for poor Agnes had but the one dress she wore, and Derette well knew that no amount of mending would carry it through another winter. But how was a penniless child to procure another for her? If Derette had not been a young person of original ideas and very independent spirit, the audacious notion which she was now entertaining would never have visited her mind. This was no less than a visit to the Castle, to beg one of the cast-off gowns of the women of the household. Dresses wore long in the Middle Ages, and ladies of rank were accustomed to make presents of half-worn ones to each other. Derette was not quite so presumptuous as to think of addressing the Countess--that, even in her eyes, seemed a preposterous impossibility; but surely one of her waiting-women might be reached. How was she to accomplish her purpose? That she must slip away unseen was the first step to be taken. Her mother would never dream of allowing such an errand, as Derette well knew; but she comforted herself, as others have done beside her, with the reflection that the excellence of her motive quite compensated for the unsatisfactory details of her conduct. Wedged as she was in the midst of the family group, and encumbered with her basket, she could not hope to get away before they reached home; but she thought she saw her chance directly afterwards, when the baskets should have been discharged of their contents, and every body was busy inspecting, talking about, and putting away, the various purchases that had been made.