'What put it into your head? Who taught you? Is this your
first attempt? Have you paid for the silk, or am I to? Do tell me
quick; don't keep me on thorns!"
* Here flashes on the cultivated mind the sprightly couplet,
"Oh, that I had my mistress at this bay,
To kiss and clip me--till I run away."
SHAKESPEARE.--Venus and Adonis.
Lucy answered this fusillade in detail. "You know, aunt, dressmakers
bring us their failures, and we, by our hints, get them made into
successes."
"So we do."
"So I said to myself, 'Now why not bring a little intelligence to bear
at the beginning, and make these things right at once?' Well, I bought
several books, and studied them, and practiced cutting out, in large
sheets of brown paper first; next I ventured a small flight--I made
Jane a gown."
"What! your servant?"
"Yes. I had a double motive; first attempts are seldom brilliant, and
it was better to fail in merino, and on Jane, than on you, madam, and
in silk. In the next place, Jane had been giving herself airs, and
objecting to do some work of that kind for me, so I thought it a good
opportunity to teach her that dignity does not consist in being
disobliging. The poor girl is so ashamed now: she comes to me in her
merino frock, and pesters me all day to let her do things for me. I am
at my wit's end sometimes to invent unreal distresses, like the
writers of fiction, you know; and, aunty, dear, you will not have to
pay for the stuff: to tell you the real truth, I overheard Mr.
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