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'How I wish you could have time to do this job! for it would bring you in a pretty penny, and I know my mistress would be pleased with your work; but they are to be done very quickly, in time for the next ship, and I do not see that you could get through them with only one pair of hands.'
'We have two pair of hands,' cried Susan; 'here are mine.'
'Ah, but what can they do?' asked Sarah, 'and how can they do it? It is not enough to have four fingers and a thumb. Hands must be handy.'
'And so they are,' answered Susan's mother. 'See whether any hands could do neater work than that.' And she pointed me out to Sarah.
Sarah took me up, and turned me from side to side. Then she looked at my hems, then at my seams, then at my gathers, while I felt truly proud and happy, conscious that not a long stitch could be found in either.
'Well to be sure!' exclaimed she, after examining me all over; 'do you mean that all that is really Susan's own work?'
'Every stitch of it,' replied the mother; 'and I think better need not be put into any shirt, though Master William does deserve the best of every thing.'
'You never said a truer word, neither for Master William nor for little Susan,' replied Sarah; 'and I wish you joy, Susan, of being able to help your mother so nicely, for now I can leave you the job to do between you.'