"By this time she was sitting up--and, looking round her, she saw
Lady Harriet, in her velvets and silks, sitting on our rug, smiling,
her bonnet off, and her pretty hair all bright with the blaze of the
fire. My word! sister was up on her feet directly; and she dropped
her curtsey, and made her excuses for sleeping, as fast as might be,
while I went off to put on my best cap, for sister might well say I
was out of my wits to go on chatting to an earl's daughter in an old
black silk skull-cap. Black silk, too! when, if I'd only known she
was coming, I might have put on my new brown silk one, lying idle in
my top drawer. And when I came back, sister was ordering tea for her
ladyship,--our tea, I mean. So I took my turn at talk, and sister
slipped out to put on her Sunday silk. But I don't think we were
quite so much at our ease with her ladyship as when I sat pulling
out my lace in my skull-cap. And she was quite struck with our tea,
and asked where we got it, for she had never tasted any like it
before; and I told her we gave only 3_s._ 4_d._ a pound for it, at
Johnson's--(sister says I ought to have told her the price of our
company-tea, which is 5_s._ a pound, only that was not what we were
drinking; for, as ill-luck would have it, we'd none of it in the
house)--and she said she would send us some of hers, all the way
from Russia or Prussia, or some out-of-the-way place, and we were to
compare and see which we liked best; and if we liked hers best, she
could get it for us at 3_s._ a pound. And she left her love for you;
and, though she was going away, you were not to forget her. Sister
thought such a message would set you up too much, and told me she
would not be chargeable for the giving it you. 'But,' I said, 'a
message is a message, and it's on Molly's own shoulders if she's set
up by it. Let us show her an example of humility, sister, though we
have been sitting cheek-by-jowl in such company.' So sister humphed,
and said she'd a headache, and went to bed. And now you may tell me
your news, my dear."
So Molly told her small events; which, interesting as they might
have been at other times to the gossip-loving and sympathetic Miss
Phoebe, were rather pale in the stronger light reflected from the
visit of an earl's daughter.