“I’ve got a white cambric, mother, and blue ribbons ready for her,” said Pamela, smacking her lips with gusto, “and a Shepherdess Dunstable. If that don’t settle him! ’Tis the very thing, so simple and fresh, a sort of daisy-gown, father and mother, that’ll start Master Tom thinking o’ dairies and the clean linen and the white flour in the bin; and, ‘What a modest, nice girl,’ he’ll say, ‘The very wife for a farmer. No nonsense of cheap finery. Only what a maid could buy for herself and stitch at home,’ he’ll think, poor innocent, and it’s the model for the French Queen at Trianon, where she plays at milkmaid, you’d never believe!” “Mercy on us!” said Mrs. Pounce, with an uncomprehending stare. “Frenchies be queer people, to be sure.” “And Jenny and Betty shall wear the sprigged muslin,” pursued Pamela. “And my little pet, Peg, the robe-coat I made her out of the odds and ends Madame Mirabel gave me from her ladies’ counter.” “And what will you wear yourself, my dear?” asked the mother, cutting her rolled-out paste into neat rounds. “Is it me, mother?” Pamela hesitated. Then: “I don’t mean to go,” says she. “Not mean to go?” screamed the farmer’s wife, blank disappointment writing itself on her good-humoured countenance. “Tut! tut!” cried the farmer, and wheeled himself round in his chair. The London girl coloured, and a shadow came over her face. “Some one’s got to stay at home and look after little Tom,” said she stoutly, “and him but ten months old, the poor fond lamb!” She glanced at the wooden cradle to the left of the hearth, where, under a patchwork quilt, a chubby miniature reproduction of the farmer was lying, with fists clenched in a determined fashion, as if he defied anyone to rob him of his repose. “Why, I never heard such nonsense!” Mrs. Pounce gathered the cuttings of paste together and dabbed them into a single lump with an irritable hand. “And who’s minded little Tom, do ye think, all the hours, miss, that I’ve got to be butter-making, plucking of geese, and cutting up pig for the salting? Who but old Nance, my love, who looked after yourself when you was no bigger than the little ’un there?” “She’s getting very old,” said Pamela. “I caught her nodding yesterday with the Blessing on her lap, and he as near as anything into the cinders. Besides, my mind’s made up, and there’s no use your trying to unmake it. I’ve my reasons, and that’s all there is to it.” “Why, Pam, why, lovey”--Mrs. Pounce had a grimace like an infant about to cry--“you fair break my heart. Why, ’twas all my thought, these days and days, how I’d let neighbours see what a beauty my dear, good London da’ter be, and as elegant as any lady!” “If you’ve got a reason for disappointing your mother, out with it, girl, so it’s a good ’un,” said Farmer Pounce, with some sternness. Pamela tossed her head. She was never one for making mysteries.