Maia

"And he got the boat all right, did he?" interrupted Morca. "He's gone off?"

"Well, 'course he did," answered Maia with a touch of impatience. "Why wouldn't he?" Then, impudently, "Hadn't, I shouldn't be here. The cart, mum, what's that queer-looking cart outside? Who's brought it?"

"Ah!" said Morca, still smiling. "Strikes me some people's left their eyes outside in the sun, or maybe they're just not very bright today. Haven't you seen-"

"What's up with that curtain, then?" asked Maia suddenly, looking across at the screened-off sleeping place on the other side of the room."Hens got in behind it or something?"

"Oh, cat's been asleep in there all morning," answered Morca quickly. "But never you mind that now, Miss Maia;

just look behind you at what's laying on the table. Walked right past it, didn't you?"

"On the table? Oh!" Maia, having turned about, stood staring, fingers on either side of her open mouth.

Lying across the table-otherwise bare and unusually clean-was a cream-colored dress made of some smooth, softly-shining material, its bodice embroidered with blue and green flowers. Displayed thus in the center of the squalid, smoky room it appeared marvellously beautiful and so inexplicably out of place as almost to seem unreal- a vision or an illusion. Maia, gazing at it speechlessly, felt a kind of alarm. If something like this could materialize out of nowhere, then almost anything could happen. But what?

Walking over to the table, she looked at the dress more closely. Of course, she thought with some chagrin, she could hardly expect to be much of a judge of such things. The effect of its beauty was to subdue her, making her feel grubby and ignorant.

"D'you like it?" asked Morca from behind her.

"Like it?" echoed Maia abstractedly. The question seemed to have no meaning. It was rather as though her mother had asked her whether she liked the lake or the stars. Tentatively, she put out a hand towards the thick, creamy material of the skirt.

"Better not touch it just yet, Maia dear," said Morca. "Not until you've had a wash. There's some nice hot water ready for you on the fire, look."

Her mother's unusually amiable and coaxing manner- certainly she did not normally go out of her way to encourage the girls to wasli-following upon the apparition of the strange cart and the dress, completed Maia's bewilderment. She sat down on the bench beside the table.

"What's it all mean, then, mum? Who's brought that cart and what for? Where is he now? Did he bring this dress and all?"

Morca waddled to the hearth, took up the pannikin and began ladling hot water into the tub.

"Well, it's good news for you right enough," she said. "There's two of 'em. They sell fine clothes to rich people, that's what. Clothes the like of that over there."

"Sell fine clothes?" Maia, ceasing for a moment her contemplation of the dress, turned, frowning in puzzlement, and looked at her mother. "I don't understand.

What are they doing here? They can't think to be selling such things to the likes of us. Anyway, where are they?"

"Oh-I reckon they're gone down to the lake for a bit of a cool-off," said Morca. "They'll be back soon, I expect, so you'd best just hurry, hadn't you?"

"Hurry? What d'you mean, hurry?" Then, petulantly, "Why can't you explain so's I c'n understand?"

"Yes, I should do, shouldn't I?" answered Morca. "Well, I said it was good news for you-all depending on whether you fancy it, I suppose. These men have come from Thet-tit, that's where, and their work's selling clothes the like of that to the sort of folk who can afford to buy them- the Governor and his captains and their ladies, I dare say. Seems they were in 'The Safe Moorings' yesterday and Frarnli told them you were near enough the prettiest girl in these parts. So they've just come out this morning to see for themselves, haven't they?"

"Come from Meerzat this morning? I never saw them on the road."

"Very like they might have gone by while you just happened to be off the road," replied Morca, putting down the pannikin and looking up at her sharply. Maia bit her lip and made no reply.

"You never heard tell the way fine clothes are sold?" went on her mother. "Dresses like that aren't sold in shops or markets, you know, like the soft of things we buy- raisins and pitch and that. Oh dear, no! The merchants who deal in these things take them to rich folks' houses in special covered carts like that one outside, and then show them privately, that's what they do."

"Well, what if they do?" retorted Maia, resentful of this instruction.