“Our first love murdered is the sharpest pang
A human heart can feel.”—Young.
Floy came down to breakfast with a violent headache. She said nothing about it, but her look of suffering and want of appetite did not escape Hetty’s watchful eye, and made her more determined than ever to come speedily to the rescue.
The opportunity offered shortly after the conclusion of the meal. Leaving her mother and Patsy to clear it away, Hetty hurried into the store. It was still too early to open, but there were accounts to be looked over and things to be set right before she would be ready for customers.
She had not been there long when Mrs. Sharp came in with the over-skirt she had helped Floy to finish the night before.
“See, Hetty, what do you think of this?” she asked, with a pleased look. “Some of Miss Kemper’s work. She really has a wonderful amount of taste.”
“Yes, I think so; it’s perfectly lovely, Aunt Prue; you never had an apprentice before, or a journey-woman either, for that matter, who could trim half so prettily or had so many original ideas about it.”
Mrs. Sharp assented, shaking out the dress and gazing admiringly upon it as she turned it this way and that to note the effect.
“Yes,” she said complacently, “we’ve secured a real treasure in her, and I never shall regret having consented to take her.”
“She’s worth taking care of.”