“Yes, tank you, Miss Elsie; an’ Ise pretty well exceptin’ a misery in de back.”
“I think mamma would say you shouldn’t work on the machine to-day if your back hurts you,” remarked Elsie, with a compassionate look.
“Oh la, chile, ’tain’t nothin’!” exclaimed Aunt Kitty, with a contemptuous sniff directed at her companion. “Rachel she’s always ’plainin’ ob a misery somewheres, and de mo’ you nuss her up and let her off from work, de wuss it grows. She better work away and forgit it. Dat’s how dis chile does.”
Elsie seemed too eager about something else to pay attention to the remark. She had taken a key from her pocket, and unlocking a large wardrobe on the farther side of the room, “Annis,” she said, “won’t you come here for a moment?”
Annis was beside her instantly.
“Don’t you think this is pretty?” Elsie asked, showing her some beautifully fine India mull.
“Oh, lovely!” Annis exclaimed. “Are you going to have a dress made of that?”
“Yes; to wear to Carrie’s party, and I want you to have one, so that we will be dressed alike. Papa bought it some time ago, a whole piece, I think he said, and I shall take it as a great favor,” she added in an undertone and with a very winning, persuasive look into Annis’s eyes, “if you will accept a dress of it as a present from me.”
“Thank you ever so much, but—I’m afraid I oughtn’t to,” Annis said, hesitating, blushing, and looking half pleased, half as if the offer were slightly wounding to her pride of independence.
“Why not?” Elsie asked entreatingly. “Papa wants you to—it was he who thought of it first—and I shall be so sorry if you refuse. I’ve quite set my heart on having our dresses exactly alike, just as if you were my sister. You know I’ve never had a sister, and I’ve always wanted one so much.”