Not Like Other Girls

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

“Bless her dear heart, if she is not travelling thousands of years and miles from Mrs. Trimmings!” exclaimed Phillis, who never could be serious long. “Well, Nannie, I understand you, though you are a trifle vague. We will have our Quest and our unattainable standard; and I will be your maiden knight—yours and Dulce’s.

“‘How sweet are looks that ladies bend On whom their favors fall! For them I’ll battle till the end, To save from shame and thrall.’”

And when she had repeated this she rose, laughing, and said they were all a little demented; and what did they mean by wasting their time when there were three dresses to be cut out? and Dulce must have the work fixed for the sewing-machine.

For the next hour there was little talk, only the snipping sound of scissors and the rustling of silken breadths, and sometimes the swish and the tearing of sundry materials, and then the whirring and burning and tappings of Dulce’s sewing machine, like a dozen or two of woodpeckers at work on an iron tree. And no one quoted any more poetry, for prose was heaped up everywhere about them, and their heads were full of business.

But in the afternoon, when things were in progress and looked promising, and Mrs. Challoner had had her nap, and was busy over some sleeves that they had given her to keep her quiet and satisfy her maternal conscience that she was helping her girls, Phillis did hear a little about Miss Drummond’s visit. The sewing machine, which they worked by turns, had stopped for a time, and they were all three round the table, sewing and fixing as busily as possible: and Phillis, remembering Sir Galahad, dared not say she was tired, only she looked out on the lengthening shadows with delight, and thought about tea and an evening walk just to stretch her cramped muscles. And if one day seemed so long, how would a week of days appear before the blessed Sunday gave them a few hours of freedom?

It was at this moment that Nan, with fine tact, broke the silence that was good for work, but was apt to wax drowsy in time: 170

“Miss Milner’s dress is getting on well. How fast you two girls work! and mammie is doing the sleeves beautifully. Another afternoon you must let the work rest, mammie, and read to us, or Phillis will get restive. By the bye, Dulce, we have not told her a word about Miss Drummond’s visit.”

“No, indeed: was it not good of her to come so soon?” exclaimed Dulce. “She told us she wanted to be our first customer, and seemed quite disappointed when we said that we were bound in honor and mere gratitude to send Miss Milner’s dress home first. ‘Not that I am in a hurry for my dress, for nobody cares what I wear,’ she said, quite cheerfully; ‘but I wanted to be the first on your list.’ I wish we could oblige her, for she is a nice, unaffected little thing, and I am beginning to like her, though she is a little fussy.”

“But she was as meek as a lamb about her dress,” added Nan, who was a first-rate needle-woman, and could work rapidly while she talked. “Just fancy, Phil! she wanted to have a jacket with tabs and loose sleeves, just for comfort and coolness.”

“Loose sleeves and a jacket!” almost gasped Phillis, for the princess skirts were then worn, and jackets were consigned to oblivion for the time being. “I hope you told her, Nan, that we had never worked for Mrs. Noah, neither had Mrs. Shem ever honored us by her custom.”