“You’ve no relatives?”
“Only some cousins. They’re all as poor as poverty too, and they don’t care a pin for me.”
“Is there any kind of work you would really like if you could do it?”
“What’s the use of talking—I can’t do it.”
“But tell me,” Olga urged.
“You’ll think I’m a fool.”
“No, I will not,” Olga promised.
“It seems ridiculous——” Lizette hesitated, the colour rising in her sallow cheeks, “but I’d just love to make beautiful white things—lingerie, you know, like what I sell at the store. It would be next best to having them to wear myself. I don’t care so much about the outside things—gowns and hats—but I think it would be just heavenly to have all the underneath things white and lacey, and lovely—don’t you think so?”
“I never thought of it. You see I don’t care about clothes,” Olga returned. “Can you sew, Lizette?”
Lizette hesitated, then, with a look half shamefaced and half proud, she drew from her bag a bit of linen.