I was washing the butter which lay
before me in a pan of water, with the sleeves of my gown pinned above my
elbow.
When the visitors paused to see what we were doing I did not look at
them but went on with my work. There was a good deal of whispering and
laughing among them, and I felt without looking at them that they were
not gentle-folk, at least such gentle-folk as I knew.
But presently I had the most painful sense of being stared out of
countenance, and lifting my eyes I found the eyes of one of the visitors
fixed upon me with so rude and insolent a gaze that the colour rushed
into my cheeks as though some one had struck me.
The person was a youngish man, dressed in what I took to be the height
of fashion. We know little enough about fashion, and my grandfather's
knee-breeches and frilled shirt were very smart in the Forties. The
young man had red hair and very bold blue eyes; his complexion was
ruddy, and his strong white teeth showed under his red moustache.
At the moment of looking at him I was aware of the greatest aversion and
fear within myself. I lowered my eyes and devoted myself to what I was
doing, painfully conscious all the time of the colour in my cheeks which
must make me conspicuous to those who were looking at me.
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