“She doesn’t want me. It seems Mrs. Leighton did not speak very highly of me.”
“The trollop! I’d like to give her a box on the ear, drat her impudence!” said the irate apple-woman. “And what will you be doin’ now?”
“Do you think I can get some sewing to do, Mrs. O’Keefe?”
“Yes, Miss Florence—I’ll get you some vests to make; but it’s hard work and poor pay.”
“I must take what I can get,” sighed Florence. “I cannot choose.”
“If you’d only tend an apple-stand, Miss Florence! There’s Mrs. Brady wants to sell out on account of the rheumatics, and I’ve got a trifle in the savings bank—enough to buy it. You’d make a dollar a day, easy.”
“It isn’t to be thought of, Mrs. O’Keefe. If you will kindly see about getting me some sewing, I will see how I can get along.”
The result was that Mrs. O’Keefe brought Florence in the course of the day half a dozen vests, for which she was to be paid the munificent sum of twenty-five cents each.
Florence had very little idea of what she was undertaking.
She was an expert needlewoman, and proved adequate to the work, but with her utmust industry she could only make one vest in a day, and that would barely pay her rent.