'No; why do you ask?'
'Oh, I just thought you might have looked in.'
'Is there anything new there?'
'I dinna say there is, but - but just go and see.'
'There can't be anything new if you kept the door barred,' I say
cleverly.
This crushes her for a moment; but her eagerness that I should see
is greater than her fear. I set off for the east room, and she
follows, affecting humility, but with triumph in her eye. How
often those little scenes took place! I was never told of the new
purchase, I was lured into its presence, and then she waited
timidly for my start of surprise.
'Do you see it?' she says anxiously, and I see it, and hear it, for
this time it is a bran-new wicker chair, of the kind that whisper
to themselves for the first six months.
'A going-about body was selling them in a cart,' my mother begins,
and what followed presents itself to my eyes before she can utter
another word. Ten minutes at the least did she stand at the door
argy-bargying with that man. But it would be cruelty to scold a
woman so uplifted.
'Fifteen shillings he wanted,' she cries, 'but what do you think I
beat him down to?'
'Seven and sixpence?'
She claps her hands with delight. 'Four shillings, as I'm a living
woman!' she crows: never was a woman fonder of a bargain.
I gaze at the purchase with the amazement expected of me, and the
chair itself crinkles and shudders to hear what it went for (or is
it merely chuckling at her?).
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