"What kind of sewing, dear? Embroidery?"
"No, Mother dear; it's the purely domestic variety; plain sewing and buttonholes and shirtwaists and middy blouses and how to hang a skirt, if I get so far along. Don't you think I'd be a more useful girl if I knew how to do some of those things?"
"You're a useful daughter now, dear; but I think it would be a splendid thing for you to learn just the kind of sewing that we need in the family."
"That every family needs," corrected Helen.
The mother looked closely at her daughter.
"Yes," she assented.
Helen had a plan in her mind and she had not meant to tell her mother until the sewing class had proved a success and she had learned to do all the things she had mentioned, but she was straightforward and she could not resist sharing her secret with Mrs. Morton.
"I meet so many girls here who are doing something to pay for their holiday, just the way those porters who brought our things down the first morning are, that I'm just crazy to do something, too," she explained breathlessly. "It seemed to me that if I learned how to do the kind of sewing that everybody must have I could get some work to do here and make some money."
Mrs. Morton and Mrs. Emerson looked at each other in amazement. Neither spoke for a moment.
"Why do you need more money, dear? You have your allowance."