For the first few days, they were so busy doing this that they failed to notice that their own was almost the largest house in the village, and Elsie was the first to remark that the cottages about them were rather poor and small; and the women she saw standing about, when she went through the village street, did not look as though they would want much dressmaking done for them, and she ventured to say as much to her mother one evening.
"Their frocks are like sacks, with a couple of holes for their arms," said Tom, in a disparaging tone. "There certainly is not much more shape in them," laughed his mother.
"But I did not expect to find my customers among the village folk," she added.
"But there don't seem to be any other people living here," said Tom, who had explored the neighbourhood as far as the end of the village street.
"Not close at hand, perhaps; but there are gentlemen's houses round the neighbourhood, and that is where I shall find my customers I hope. When we have got straight, and I am ready to begin, I shall have to go and see some of these ladies, and ask them to give me some work."
Tom did not like this suggestion. "You did not have to go and beg for work before," he said.
"No, my boy; I had friends all round me, and I just told them what I thought of doing, and they asked me to do their work. That is all the difference."
"It means that we haven't got any friends about here," said Elsie.
"Yes, that is it exactly; but we must make friends as fast as we can, you know."
Mrs. Winn soon found, however, that this was not so easy, even with the poorest of her neighbours. They were strangers—that was the only fault that could be brought against them. But it was sufficient to make them be regarded with suspicion, if not absolute dislike. For they could not understand why anybody should want to come and live in their village, unless it was to spy upon them, or take their work away from them in some way, or lower the wages that the farmers paid them.