Elsa bent across the table and picked up the folded bodice, murmuring that it was done. The dressmaker rose, and reaching for the hooped skirt, held it up between her two arms. It was a thrilling moment. Fanny, too, rose. "Put it on a dummy," she commanded. Candles were placed around the dummy, who seemed to step forward out of the shades of the kitchen, and offer its headless body to be hooked and buttoned into the dress. All the room stood back to look and admire. "Wie schön!" said Elsa's shiny-headed friends, peering with their mouths open.
"Ah, dear child, you were so calm, and now it is done!" said the old dressmaker.
The dress stood stiffly glittering at them, white as snow, the nine frills pricking away from the great hooped skirt.
Fanny picked up the brown paper parcel she had laid on the dresser, taking from it a bottle of blue ink, a bottle of green, and a paint brush, and diluted the inks in a saucer under the tap. There was awe in the kitchen as she held the brush, filled with colour, in the air, and began to paint blue flowers on the dress.
At the first touch of the brush the old dressmaker clasped her hands. "What is she doing, the English girl! And we who have kept it so white…."
"Hush," said Fanny, stooping towards the bodice, "trust me!"
The children held their breath, except Elsa, who breathed so hard that Fanny felt her hair stir on her neck. She covered the plain, tight- waisted bodice with dancing flowers in blue and green.
On the frills of the skirt a dozen large flowers were painted as though fallen from the bodice. Soon it was done.
"Like that! In five minutes!" groaned the dressmaker, troubled by the peculiar growth of the flowers.
"Let it dry," said Fanny. "I'll go home and start doing my hair. Elsa will bring it round when it's dry."