“Well! I don’t know, godmother. He suffered heavily, did my unfortunate boy. He was very, very ill sometimes. And I called him a quantity of names;” shaking her head over her work, and dropping tears. “I don’t know that his going wrong was much the worse for me. If it ever was, let us forget it.”
“You are a good girl, you are a patient girl.”
“As for patience,” she would reply with a shrug, “not much of that, godmother. If I had been patient, I should never have called him names. But I hope I did it for his good. And besides, I felt my responsibility as a mother, so much. I tried reasoning, and reasoning failed. I tried coaxing, and coaxing failed. I tried scolding and scolding failed. But I was bound to try everything, you know, with such a charge upon my hands. Where would have been my duty to my poor lost boy, if I had not tried everything!”
With such talk, mostly in a cheerful tone on the part of the industrious little creature, the day-work and the night-work were beguiled until enough of smart dolls had gone forth to bring into the kitchen, where the working-bench now stood, the sombre stuff that the occasion required, and to bring into the house the other sombre preparations. “And now,” said Miss Jenny, “having knocked off my rosy-cheeked young friends, I’ll knock off my white-cheeked self.” This referred to her making her own dress, which at last was done. “The disadvantage of making for yourself,” said Miss Jenny, as she stood upon a chair to look at the result in the glass, “is, that you can’t charge anybody else for the job, and the advantage is, that you haven’t to go out to try on. Humph! Very fair indeed! If He could see me now (whoever he is) I hope he wouldn’t repent of his bargain!”
The simple arrangements were of her own making, and were stated to Riah thus: