The little girl entered the cluttered bed-sitting-room, a languid and pale little creature of eight years, but when Julie held up the little frock before her, her eyes lighted with joy.
“Oh, momma!” she breathed, turning to her mother. “Oh, it’s done, ain’t it!”
She seized the dress, and holding it up under her chin, danced away to look at herself in the faded mirror.
“Oh, momma! Let me wear it this evening,” she pleaded, turning about from side to side, preening before the glass.
“You better take time to thank Mis’ Freeman, ’stead er primpin’ like that,” her mother admonished her. “She’s the one finished it for you, she’s your friend.”
“Thank you, thank you, marm,” the child said, turning toward Julie. The words were constrained and inadequate, spoken in obedience to her mother’s command; but as she stood there with the pink folds of the frock caught close to her and her pinched face flushed with happiness, she was a little point of color and joy that lighted up the discouraged room and made her mother’s eyes linger upon her fondly a moment, then turn for sympathetic understanding to Julie.
“Look what else I got,” Julie said, and took a small package from her workbasket. The child unwrapped it shyly and a bright pink ribbon shimmered into view.
“For my hair—to match the dress,” she breathed, and fell dumb with happiness.
“My, but you’re kind!” Mrs. Watkins exclaimed again.
“Oh, it ain’t anything,” Julie deprecated. “I love to see children in pretty clothes, an’ I like to sew. I used to do dressmaking up in the country where I lived.” With the words, suddenly the sight of her little shop in Hart’s Run staring with blank shuttered windows out upon the street, with its nasturtiums and sweet peas in the side yard, rose up in her mind and hung there a moment before it dissolved. It gave Julie a sharp stab of unexpected wistfulness.