"Pretty, pretty, pretty!" said the old man with a clap of his hands.
"Most elegant taste!"
"Glad you like 'em," returned Miss Wren loftily. "But the fun is,
godmother, how I make the great ladies try my dresses on. Though it's
the hardest part of my business, and would be, even if my back were not
bad and my legs queer."
He looked at her as not understanding what she said.
"Bless you, godmother," said Miss Wren, "I have to scud about town at
all hours. If it was only sitting at my bench, cutting out and sewing,
it would be comparatively easy work; but it's the trying-on by the great
ladies that takes it out of me."
"How the trying-on?" asked Riah.
"What a moony godmother you are, after all!" returned Miss Wren. "Look
here. There's a Drawing-room, or a grand day in the Park, or a show or a
fete, or what you like. Very well. I squeeze among the crowd, and I look
about me. When I see a great lady very suitable for my business, I say,
'You'll do, my dear!' and I take particular notice of her again, and
run home and cut her out, and baste her. Then another day I come
scudding back again to try on. Sometimes she plainly seems to say, 'How
that little creature _is_ staring!' All the time I am only saying to
myself, 'I must hollow out a bit here; I must slope away there'; and I
am making a perfect slave of her, making her try on my doll's dress.
Evening parties are severer work for me, because there's only a doorway
for full view, and what with hobbling among the wheels of the carriages
and the legs of the horses, I fully expect to be run over some night.
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