Mary’s fair head emerged from the rustling folds of the brocade, her cheeks crimson as one of the moss-roses,—while her mother’s face assumed a severe gravity, as she remarked that she believed James had been much pleased with Jane Spencer, and that, for her part, she should be very glad when he came home, if he could marry such a steady, sensible girl, and settle down to a useful, Christian life.
‘Ah, yes,—just so,—a very excellent idea, certainly,’ said Miss Prissy. ‘It wants a little taken in here on the shoulders, and a little under the arms. The biases are all right; the sleeves will want altering, Miss Scudder. I hope you will have a hot iron ready for pressing.’
Mrs. Scudder rose immediately, to see the command obeyed; and as her back was turned, Miss Prissy went on in a low tone,—
‘Now I, for my part, don’t think there’s a word of truth in that story about James Marvyn and Jane Spencer, for I was down there at work one day when he called, and I know there couldn’t have been anything between them,—besides, Miss Spencer, her mother, told me there wasn’t. There, Miss Scudder, you see that is a good fit. It’s astonishing how near it comes to fitting, just as it was. I didn’t think Mary was so near what you were, when you were a girl, Miss Scudder. The other day, when I was up to General Wilcox’s, the General he was in the room when I was a-trying on Miss Wilcox’s cherry velvet, and she was asking couldn’t I come this week for her, and I mentioned I was coming to Miss Scudder; and the General, says he,—“I used to know her when she was a girl. I tell you, she was one of the handsomest girls in Newport, by George!” says he. And says I,—“General, you ought to see her daughter.” And the General,—you know his jolly way,—he laughed, and says he,—“If she is as handsome as her mother was, I don’t want to see her,” says he. “I tell you, wife,” says he, “I but just missed falling in love with Katy Stephens.”’
‘I could have told her more than that,’ said Mrs. Scudder, with a flash of her old coquette girlhood for a moment lighting her eyes and straightening her lithe form. ‘I guess, if I should show a letter he wrote me once——. But what am I talking about?’ she said, suddenly stiffening back into a sensible woman. ‘Miss Prissy, do you think it will be necessary to cut it off at the bottom? It seems a pity to cut such rich silk.’
‘So it does, I declare. Well, I believe it will do to turn it up.’
‘I depend on you to put it a little into modern fashion, you know,’ said Mrs. Scudder. ‘It is many a year, you know, since it was made.’
‘Oh, never you fear! You leave all that to me,’ said Miss Prissy. ‘Now, there never was anything so lucky as that, just before all these wedding-dresses had to be fixed, I got a letter from my sister Martha, that works for all the first families of Boston. And Martha, she is really unusually privileged, because she works for Miss Cranch, and Miss Cranch gets letters from Miss Adams,—you know Mr. Adams is Ambassador now at the Court of St. James, and Miss Adams writes home all the particulars about the court-dresses; and Martha, she heard one of the letters read, and she told Miss Cranch that she would give the best five-pound note she had, if she could just copy that description to send to Prissy. Well, Miss Cranch let her do it, and I’ve got a copy of the letter here in my work-pocket. I read it up to Miss General Wilcox’s, and to Major Seaforth’s, and I’ll read it to you.’
Mrs. Katy Scudder was a born subject of a crown, and, though now a republican matron, had not outlived the reverence, from childhood implanted, for the high and stately doings of courts, lords, ladies, queens, and princesses, and therefore it was not without some awe that she saw Miss Prissy produce from her little black work-bag, the well-worn epistle.
‘Here it is,’ said Miss Prissy, at last. ‘I only copied out the parts about being presented at Court. She says:—