Miss Polly Dawson, a showy damsel with black hair and a cherry-coloured net at the back of it--one of the family that Roy was pleased to term the ill-doing Dawsons, took the two skeins in her hand. "Blest if I can tell!" was her answer. "It's for doing up mother's green silk bonnet, so it won't do to take blue. You be more used to it nor me, Mrs. Duff." "My eyes never was good for sorting silks by this light," responded Mrs. Duff. "I'll tell you what, Polly; you shall take 'em both. Your mother must take the responsibility of fixing on one herself; or let her keep 'em till the morning and choose it then. She should have sent by daylight. You can bring back the skein you don't use to-morrow; but mind you keep it clean." "Wrap 'em up," curtly returned Miss Polly Dawson. Mrs. Duff was proceeding to do so, when some tall thin form, bearing a large bundle, entered the shop in a fluster. It was Mrs. Peckaby. She sat herself down on the only stool the shop contained, and let the bundle slip to the floor. "Give a body leave to rest a bit, Mother Duff! I be turned a'most inside out." "What's the matter?" asked Mrs. Duff, while Polly Dawson surveyed her with a stare. "There's a white cow in the pound. I can't tell ye the turn it give me, coming sudden upon it. I thought nothing less, at first glance, but it was the white quadruple." "What! hasn't that there white donkey come yet?" demanded Polly Dawson; who, in conjunction with sundry others of her age and sex in the village, was not sparing of her free remarks to Mrs. Peckaby on the subject, thereby aggravating that lady considerably. "You hold your tongue, Polly Dawson, and don't be brazen, if you can help it," rebuked Mrs. Peckaby. "I was so took aback for the minute, that I couldn't neither stir nor speak," she resumed to Mrs. Duff. "But when I found it was nothing but a old strayed wretch of a pounded cow, I a'most dropped with the disappointment. So I thought I'd come back here and take a rest. Where's Dan?" "Dan's out," answered Mrs. Duff. "Is he? I thought he might have took this parcel down to Sykes's, and saved me the sight o' that pound again and the deceiver in it. It's just my luck!" "Dan's gone up to Verner's Pride," continued Mrs. Duff. "That fine French madmizel, as rules there, come down for some trifles this evening, and took him home with her to carry the parcel. It's time he was back, though, and more nor time. 'Twasn't bigger, neither, nor a farthing bun, but 'twas too big for _her_. Isn't it a-getting the season for you to think of a new gownd, Mrs. Peckaby?" resumed Mother Duff, returning to business. "I have got some beautiful winter stuffs in."