On the second day after Mrs. Mason’s burial Isabel Hilton called on Jenny, and reproached the latter sharply for failing to have her dress completed, refusing even to excuse the poor girl when she offered her mother’s death as an apology for failing to fulfill her contract.
Iris remained hidden in the inner room during Isabel’s visit, but the latter made no mention whatever of her missing sister’s name.
She quietly informed Jenny that in the future she would have no work for her, as she was not fond of disappointments, and left the unhappy little dressmaker in despair, as Mrs. Clara Neville had also withdrawn her patronage.
After this it was impossible for Iris and Jenny to live as the latter had formerly been able to do.
There came a day when the two girls left their humble home in search of work, without having eaten any breakfast, for the simple reason that there was not even a loaf of bread in the house.
Jenny soon succeeded in obtaining employment of a fashionable modiste in Forty-first Street, near Fifth Avenue, but Iris—or Maggie Gordon—must consent to work six months for Madam Ward as an apprentice, if she would learn the trade by which her friend earned a livelihood.
Jenny urged her to accept the offer.
“Do consent to stay here, Maggie; madam seems to be a kind lady, and the girls with whom we will have to work—Emma and Sarah—have every appearance of being quiet and ladylike girls, who will never pry into your business or make themselves too familiar.”
Iris consented to Jenny’s plan, even remembering that she had not one dollar to her name, but thinking that the jewelry of which she was possessed—if sold—would bring her money enough to defray her expenses until she could learn to work with Jenny.
Jenny made it a condition with Madam Ward that Maggie should not be separated from her, and consequently another day found Maggie Gordon, with Jenny Mason, Emma Henry, and Sarah Bennett, engaged in the making of an elegant costume of white satin and point lace—the bridal dress of Mrs. Clara Neville, to be worn on the occasion of that lady’s marriage with Mr. Charles Broughton.