She had an
odd swaggering walk, a toss of her head, and a saucy and imperious, but
rather good-natured and honest countenance. She talked rather loud, with a
good ringing voice, and a boisterous laugh when it came.
If _I_ was behind the fashion, what would Cousin Monica have thought of
her? She was arrayed, as she had stated, in black twilled cotton expressive
of her affliction; but it was made almost as short in the skirt as that of
the prints of the Bavarian broom girls. She had white cotton stockings,
and a pair of black leather boots, with leather buttons, and, for a lady,
prodigiously thick soles, which reminded me of the navvy boots I had so
often admired in _Punch_. I must add that the hands with which she assisted
her scrutiny of my dress, though pretty, were very much sunburnt indeed.
'And what's _her_ name?' she demanded, nodding to Mary Quince, who was
gazing on her awfully, with round eyes, as an inland spinster might upon a
whale beheld for the first time.
Mary courtesied, and I answered.
'Mary Quince,' she repeated. 'You're welcome, Quince. What shall I call
her? I've a name for all o' them.
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