Patterns were borrowed, and poor maids sometimes were at their wits' ends to copy them. Most households had two or three women who were deft with the needle, and who were kept pretty busy attending to their mistresses' wardrobes. Occasionally a happy blunder brought in a new style. Privateers sometimes captured cargoes of finery and smuggled them into some unguarded port, and already manufacturers were beginning to copy foreign goods with tolerable success.
As for the living, there was an abundance of everything in the more southern provinces. Fruits of all kinds seemed to grow spontaneously, crops were simply magnificent, poultry, game, fish, and oysters were used without stint. They were wise, these people who had not drifted to the bleak New England shores, where the living was wrested from the soil and consciences were not yet sufficiently free to unite happiness with goodness.
CHAPTER XVIII.
OF MANY THINGS.
"Oh, where is mamma?" cried Annis, as she was clasped in Mr. Mason's arms one morning.
"Can't you give me mamma's welcome also?" inquired the kindly voice. "Why, Annis, what a large girl you are! It seems as if we must have been away an age for you to change so."
"Am I changed?" She laughed cheerfully. "Isn't it time I grew? Varina said in her last letter that she was five feet four inches. And I am not five feet yet. And Rene has been to assemblies, in long gowns. I went to two balls, and that of the flags was—magnificent."
"I shall have to look after my flock more sharply. You will all run wild."
"But mamma?"
Then he told her that although the operations had been a success, and there was now no danger of Charles growing crooked, he was still in a very delicate state of health, and the doctor had ordered him a cool climate for the summer. They were to go farther north and travel about a bit. A sea voyage was supposed to be the best, but that was quite impossible in the present state of affairs and the dangers of the ocean.
"Oh, I thought you were sure to come home!" she exclaimed disappointedly.