Howsomedever, when I want your help,
I shall know how to ask for it, and I hope you'll give it freely. I don't
want fine words; they never pulled anybody out of the ditch that I've
heard tell of."
Whatever the bailiff's trouble had been, it seemed to be lightened
to-day, Ellen thought; and yet that unusual noisy gaiety of his gave her
an uncomfortable feeling: it did not seem natural or easy.
Her household work was done by noon, and she dressed hurriedly, while her
father called for her impatiently from below--standing at the foot of the
wide bare old staircase, and bawling up to her that they should be late
at Wyncomb. She looked very pretty in her neat dark-blue merino dress and
plain linen collar, when she came tripping downstairs at last, flushed
with the hurry of her toilet, and altogether so bright a creature that it
seemed a hard thing she should not be setting out upon some real pleasure
trip, instead of that most obnoxious festival to which she was summoned.
Her father looked at her with a grim kind of approval.
"You'll do well enough, lass," he said; "but I should like you to have
had something smarter than that blue stuff. I wouldn't have minded a
couple of pounds or so to buy you a silk gown. But you'll be able to buy
yourself as many silk gowns as ever you like by-and-by, if you play your
cards well and don't make a fool of yourself.
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