"Oh, let me help!" cried Patsy.
"Very well," Jean acquiesced, "you are getting to be none so ill with the goffering iron and the pliers—"
"Better with the fancy than the plain!" laughed Patsy.
"It is to be expected, you have the light hand, and you have taste—most have neither one nor the other, but iron for all the world like a roller going over a wet field."
They worked a while in silence, only looking up occasionally and smiling at each other, or Jean might throw in a hint as to a frill or tucker which must be dealt with in a particular way.
Suddenly Jeanie Garland came nearer, a pile of folded linen over her arm.
"Have you heard anything of the press-gang at your house, Patsy?"
"Nothing," said Patsy, busy with a best Sunday cap, all lace frills and furbelows. "Of course there is always Captain Laurence at Stranryan. On clear nights you can hear his fifes and drums by standing on the stile above our house, and they say there is a King's ship or two about Belfast Lough—but why do you ask?"
Jean Garland paused yet nearer to Patsy and spoke in her ear.
"It's the lads!" she murmured. "They are in it. I am feared for them."