“So I’ve ’eerd—yisss, sir,” said Miss Lining; “and there’s something of the same in them pills that’s spoke so well of in your magazine, sir, I think. I sent by the carrier for a box, sir, on Saturday last, and would have done sooner, but for waiting for Mrs. Barker to pay for the pelerine I made out of her uncle’s funeral scarf. Yisss, misss.”
Jack was very seldom at a loss, but on this occasion he seemed puzzled.
“Pills recommended in our magazine?” he said, as we strolled up towards the Vicarage. “It’s those medical tracts you and Eleanor have been taking round lately.”
“There’s nothing about pills in them,” said I. “They’re about drains, and fresh air, and cleanliness. Besides, she said our magazine.”
“We don’t give them any magazine but the Parishioner’s Pennyworth and the missionary one,” said Jack. “I’m stumped, Margery.”
But in a few minutes I was startled by his seizing me by the shoulders and leaning against me in a paroxysm of laughter.
“Oh, Margery, I’ve got it! It is the Parishioner’s Pennyworth. There’s been an advertisement at the end of it for months, like a fly-leaf, of Norton’s chamomile pills.”
And as I unravelled to Eleanor the mystery of our dressmaking difficulties, we could hear Jack convulsing Mrs. Arkwright with a perfect reproduction of Miss Lining’s accent—“Them pills that’s spoke so well of in your magazine. Yisss, m’m.”
We got some more material, and finished the dresses triumphantly. By the next summer we were skilful enough to use our taste with some freedom and good success.
I was then fifteen, and in long dresses. I remember some most tasteful costumes which we produced; and as we contemplated them as they hung, flounced, furbelowed, and finished, upon pegs, Eleanor said: