The little girl then turned to depart, and had reached the front door when the woman called her back, saying: "But thee'll pay for the dyeing?"[86]
"What!" exclaimed Louisa, "after you have lost the shawl?"
"But I can assure thee it was dyed," replied the woman. "It actually was dyed, I can speak positive to that, and we cannot afford to lose the dyeing."
Louisa, child as she was, had acuteness enough to perceive the intended imposition, and, without making an answer, she slipped out of the door: though the woman caught her by the skirt, and attempted to stop her, repeating: "But we can't afford to lose the dyeing."
Louisa, however, disengaged herself from her grasp, and ran down the street, for some distance, as fast as possible—afraid to look back lest the Quaker woman should be coming after her for the money she had brought to pay for the shawl, and which she took care to hold tightly in her hand.
In attempting to make up the coats, it was found impossible to put the different pieces together to the same advantage as before. Also, the silk did not look well, being dyed of a dull brownish black, and stiffened to the consistence of paper. The skirts and sleeves had shrunk much in dyeing, and the pieces that composed the bodies had been ravelled, frayed, and pulled so crooked in dressing, that they had lost nearly all shape. It was impossible to make up the deficiencies by matching the silk with new, as none was to be found that bore sufficient resemblance to it. "Ah!" thought Constance, "how well these coats looked when in their original state! The shade of olive was so beautiful, the silk so soft and glossy, and they fitted so perfectly well."
When put together under all these disadvantages, the coats looked so badly that the girls were at first unwilling to wear them, except in extreme cold weather—particularly as in coming out of church they overheard whispers among the ladies in the crowd, of "That's a dyed silk"—"Any one may see that those coats have been dyed."
They trimmed them with crape, in hopes of making them look better; but the crape wore out almost immediately, and in fact it had to be taken off before the final close of the cold weather.
Spring came at last, and the Allerton family, having struggled through a melancholy and comfortless winter, had taken a larger house in a better part of the town, and made arrangements for commencing their school, in which Constance was to be chief instructress. Isabella and Helen, whose ages were sixteen and fourteen, were to assist in teaching some branches, but to continue receiving lessons in others. Louisa was to be one of the pupils.
About a fortnight before their intended removal to their new residence, one afternoon when none of the family were at home, except Constance, she was surprised by the visit of a friend from New Bedford, a young gentleman who had been absent three years on a whaling voyage, in a ship in which he had the chief interest, his father being owner of several vessels in that line.