A Country Wooing by Joan Smith

her face.
    “Because I hate appearing in public in antiquated outfits even more. This dear antique!” She held it up for their inspection. “You will recognize it, Robin, and possibly even you, Alex, have seen it before, for it’s more than three years old.” Robin came and took up the chair closest to her.
    “You wore it to the last assembly before I left,” Alex said promptly. “I didn’t think it did you justice.”
    “You are kind. Charles was more outspoken. He told me it made me look bran-faced, and my complexion, you know, was always considered my redeeming feature.” She noticed the little shadow of annoyance pass over Alex’s face and regretted that unnecessary reference to Charles. “We have aged and mellowed together, this gown and I. We are now both approaching a sere and yellow condition that makes it suit me much better.’’
    “Don’t you think it time to retire the gown?” Alex asked. He looked rather pointedly at Robin, who ignored him. Rather than taking a chair farther away, Alex moved the gown and sat on the sofa by Anne.
    She was perfectly aware of the small incident and felt a sense of gratification. “It has seen good and faithful service, but like Mrs. Dobbin, till a gift replaces it, it must go on doing duty. And that is not a hint for a new gown, Lord Penholme!”
    “I didn’t mistake it for one. Even if it were, it would be a hint that must go unheeded. Rob and I are just back from Sawburne and have decided to declare ourselves bankrupt.”
    This startling intelligence was accompanied by a rueful smile that bespoke hyperbole. “You, too?” Anne asked, shaking her head in commiseration. “What we all ought to do is set up a shop of some sort. Mama claims it is the avaricious merchants who are making all the money these days. I believe she’s right. The gown I covet would require a fortune. Three guineas a yard, they are charging for crepe nowadays. One would think it were gold or silver. Well, how bad is it at Sawburne?”
    “Very bad,” Alex answered soberly. “In much the same state as Penholme. Mortgaged to the hilt, and the farms badly run-down. At least the merchants aren’t getting up a rebellion against us.”
    “Charles never lived there, so no bills have been run up,” Robin explained. “A few thousand should put me on my feet.”
    “Is that all? Shake the pennies out of your piggy bank,” Anne suggested.
    “I did that a year ago to buy Babe a birthday present. There ain’t any pennies in it, nor anywhere else either. We must be the poorest rich people in Hampshire.”
    “You may well be,” Anne sympathized, “but Mama and I claim the title of the poorest poor people.”
    “At least you have a trade. You can set up a cobbler’s shop,” Robin said.
    “I’m too inept. My toe is pierced like a pincushion from the shoddy job I did on my own slippers. I’m after Mama to marry the butcher, but she favors the draper, I believe. There, my thread is gone, and where will I ever find three pennies to buy a new spool?” She set aside the gown with a sigh of relief and asked Cook to bring tea and call her mother down from the cheese room.
    “Water will do, if you’re short of tea,” Alex suggested. Though he made a joke of it, there was an underlying sadness as he looked around the saloon. It wore the tired appearance not of neglect but of lack of money.
    “No, no. We disregard our sad state and go on living like queens,” Anne assured him. “Bread and tea every morning, a soup bone for lunch. And if there is no moon at night, we send the backhouse boy up to Penholme in the dark to steal eggs for next day’s tea. You poor rich never miss them, I daresay.”
    “How did everybody get so poor all of a sudden?” Robin asked. He set his chin in his hands and frowned.
    “You haven’t been listening to me,” Anne chided. “It is the merchants’ fault. Old Anglin is rich as Croesus. He has two daughters, Robin. If you had your wits about you, you’d go