"Couldn't I help you?" said Jean quickly. "Don't say no; let me take Chris's place for the time. I'm sure I could manage everything but the dairy. If you could do that, I would take some of your work instead. Do let me try, and we will make Chris go!"
Barbara was hard to persuade, and Chris harder still, but in the end Jean overcame all their objections.
"I am my own mistress," she said. "It will do me good to have to work. I have lived such a lazy, selfish life up to now. Give me a chance of showing you that I am not utterly incapable. And if everything does go wrong, Chris can but come back. I don't think I can do much harm though, and I have helped her so often in feeding the animals, that I feel I know all about it."
When it was once settled, Chris became wild with delight. Her only fear was that she would not be properly dressed. But Jean took her in hand; the little village dressmaker came up, and the panelled room was turned into a work-room. An old black silk of Barbara's, originally her mother's, was, with the help of some inexpensive black net and an old lace fichu of Jean's, made into a very nice dinner dress for every evening. Then Jean persuaded Michael to take her into the nearest town on market day. She came back with sundry small purchases, amongst which was a dress length of very pale blue sprigged muslin; this, with some old lace that Barbara turned out of an unused cupboard, was manipulated by the dressmaker and Jean together into a very pretty gown.
When Chris remonstrated, Jean said, "I will give you something, so this is my present, and I've a pair of pale tan slippers and stockings that I'm going to lend you. I noticed we wear the same size in shoes."
Chris's everyday clothes were repaired and smartened. When the last day at home came, and she was putting her "outfit," as she called it, into a neat little trunk that Mick had bought for her, she turned to Jean with tears in her eyes.
"I feel," she said, "as if I am not worth all this. If it was Barbara, now, she would grace any one's drawing-room or dinner table. I'm such a plain, homely creature; I shall be awkward and ill at ease, and my godmother will be sorry she has asked me."
It was so new for Chris to think about herself at all, that Jean was almost startled. She reassured her.
"You will enjoy yourself from beginning to end. The only fear is that Mrs. Fergusson may want to keep you altogether."
Then she gave her many exhortations.