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As his eye rested on the school-house, a small red dot in the distance, he wondered if they had settled on the Queen yet, and whether Agnetta would be chosen. "She'll be rarely vexed if she ain't," he thought seriously.
Lilac was intensely interested, and it was trying after the meal was over to have to help Molly in taking away the dishes, and lose so much of the conversation. This business over she drew near Agnetta and made an attempt to learn more, but in vain. Agnetta was in her loftiest mood, and though she was full of private jokes with Bella, she turned away coldly from her cousin.
His face and the tips of his large ears got very red as he saw Lilac's confusion, and he went a step lower down the ladder, but his eyes were still above the level of the floor. "Well," said Agnetta, still giggling, "we'll hear what Peter thinks of it. Don't she look a deal better with her hair cut so, Peter?"
Lilac nodded, and the two girls stood silently on the doorstep for a moment; then Agnetta spoke again: "I s'pose you're glad you're coming to live at the farm, ain't ye?" "No," answered Lilac, "I don't know as I be. I'd rather bide here." Agnetta had recovered her courage with her voice. She stepped uninvited past Lilac into the room and cast a curious look round.
Even when Lilac had told her story many times, and explained every detail of how she had learnt to be dairymaid, he broke out again: "But how could you do it? You didn't know before you came, and there's Bella and Agnetta was born on the farm, and doesn't know now. Wonderful quick you must be, surely. And so little as you are and quiet," he went on, staring at his cousin.
She thought of Orchards Farm, but she had not courage to ask any favour there while Agnetta was so vexed with her. Even Uncle Joshua, who had always helped her at need, had nothing to suggest now, and did not even seem to think it of much importance. He dropped in to see Mrs White on the evening before May Day, and with her usual faith in him Lilac at once began to place her difficulty before him.
Accordin' to her you ought to have names as simple and common as may be. Why, think of what she said when I named my last, which is just a year ago. `And what do you think of callin' her? says she. `Why, says I, `I think of giving her the name of Agnetta. `Dear me! says she; `whyever do you give your girls such fine names?
"Well," said Bella, looking calmly at her, "I s'pose you're to be Queen, ain't you?" "No!" exclaimed Agnetta angrily, "I ain't Queen; and it's a shame, so it is." "Why, whoever is it, then?" asked Bella, open-mouthed. "They've been and chosen Lilac White; sneaking little thing!" said Agnetta. "Well, now, surely, I am surprised," said her mother.
And yet the inside did not quite match this proper outside, for her whole soul was occupied with a beautiful vision herself with a fringe like Agnetta! It proved so engrossing that she hardly noticed Mrs Wishing's departure, and when her mother spoke she looked up startled. "Yon's a poor creetur as never could stand alone and never will," she said.
He was a heavy-looking youth, and so shy that he seldom raised his eyes from the ground. "No one 'ud think," said Agnetta as the girls entered the meadow again, "as Peter was Bella's and Gusta's and my brother. He's so dreadful vulgar-lookin' dressed like that. He might be a common ploughboy, and his manners is awful." "Are they?" said Lilac.
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