TOM’S THANKSGIVING.
“It was very provoking that seamstresses and such people would get married, like the rest of the world,” Mrs. Greenough said, half in fun and half in earnest. Her fall sewing was just coming on, and here was Lizzie Brown, who had suited her so nicely, going off to be married; and she had no resource but to advertise, and take whomsoever she could get. No less than ten women had been there that day, and not one would answer.
“There comes Number Eleven; you will see,” she cried, as the bell rang.
Kitty Greenough looked on with interest. Indeed, it was her gowns, rather than her mother’s, that were most pressing. She was just sixteen, and since last winter she had shot up suddenly, as girls at that age so often do, and left all her clothes behind her.
Mrs. Greenough was right,—it was another seamstress; and Bridget showed in a plain, sad-looking woman of about forty, with an air of intense respectability. Mrs. Greenough explained what she wanted done, and the woman said quietly that she was accustomed to such work,—would Mrs. Greenough be so kind as to look at some recommendations? Whereupon she handed out several lady-like looking notes, whose writers indorsed the bearer, Mrs. Margaret Graham, as faithful and capable, used to trimmings of all sorts, and quick to catch an idea.
“Very well indeed,” Mrs. Greenough said, as she finished reading them; “I could ask nothing better. Can you be ready to come at once?”
“To-morrow, if you wish, madam,” was the answer; and then Mrs. Graham went away.
Kitty Greenough was an impulsive, imaginative girl; no subject was too dull or too unpromising for her fancy to touch it. She made a story for herself about every new person who came in her way. After Number Eleven had gone down the stairs, Kitty laughed.