"You surprise me. I thought she was left in good circumstances."
"So many think, it appears. Mrs. Lincoln, I assure you, is now practising the closest economy. I must do something for myself, Mrs. Douglas, so I have come back to Washington to open my shop."
The next day I collected my assistants, and my business went on as usual. Orders came in more rapidly than I could fill them. One day, in the middle of the month of June, the girl who was attending the door came into the cutting-room, where I was hard at work:
"Mrs. Keckley, there is a lady below, who wants to see you."
"Who is she?"
"I don't know. I did not learn her name."
"Is her face familiar? Does she look like a regular customer?"
"No, she is a stranger. I don't think she was ever here before. She came in an open carriage, with a black woman for an attendant."
"It may be the wife of one of Johnson's new secretaries. Do go down, Mrs. Keckley," exclaimed my work-girls in a chorus. I went below, and on entering the parlor, a plainly dressed lady rose to her feet, and asked:
"Is this the dressmaker?"