"Yes, Lizzie, if you are not too sleepy."
Lizzie laughs blithely. Too sleepy for such a task! The idea! At her age, and with such love in her heart for Some One who is at this very moment thinking of her!
Mrs. Lenoir assists her with the dress, and pulls it out here, and smoothes it there, while Lizzie, with innocent vanity, surveys herself in the glass. The delighted girl throws her arm round Mrs. Lenoir's neck, and kisses her rapturously.
"No one in the world can make a dress like you, Mrs. Lenoir!"
A singular contrast are these two females, who by their ages might be mother and daughter; but there is really no kinship between them. The girl so glowing, so full of happiness the woman so sombre, so fraught with sadness. The girl, all sparkle and animation; the woman with not a smile upon her face.
"It fits you perfectly, Lizzie."
"It's the loveliest, loveliest dress that ever was seen! How can I thank you?"
If passion found a place in Mrs. Lenoir's breast, it found none in her face.
"I want no thanks, Lizzie; it was a pleasure to me to make the dress for you. Let me sit by your bedside a little--in the dark. Take off the dress; I am glad you like it--there, that will do. Now jump into bed. You have to get up early in the morning."
She arranges the dress over the back of a chair, and blowing out the light, sits by the bed in darkness.