“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 mooney 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 fête, 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, and run home and cut her out and baste her. Then another day, I come scudding back again to try on, and then I take particular notice of her again. Sometimes she plainly seems to say, “How that little creature is staring!” and sometimes likes it and sometimes don’t, but much more often yes than no. 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, with making her try on my doll’s dress. Evening parties are severer work for me, because there’s only a doorway for a 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. However, there I have ’em, just the same. When they go bobbing into the hall from the carriage, and catch a glimpse of my little physiognomy poked out from behind a policeman’s cape in the rain, I dare say they think I am wondering and admiring with all my eyes and heart, but they little think they’re only