Sally Rose compressed herself to the utmost and closed her eyes. Kitty fastened the padlock and struggled with the lacings.
“Tighter! Tighter!” gasped Sally Rose.
Kitty pulled at the strong cord until it almost cut her fingers. It was waxed, and it had a toughness about it that made her think of wire.
After a moment she shoved Sally Rose up against the wall, sat down in a chair in front of her, braced her knees, and laboriously threaded and pulled till the task was over and she could snap the jeweled padlock at the top. Then she stood off to view her work.
Sally Rose looked like a long white worm standing up on its tail—or like a white candle, if you wanted to be poetic—but more like a worm. Her face was flushed, and she could take only the shortest, shallowest breaths, but there was triumph in her eye.
“Now my dress and petticoat, Kitty, if you’ll be so good. Oh wait till Gerry sees me! He’ll be so o’ercome with admiration he’ll scarce know what to say!”
“He’ll be o’ercome, I don’t doubt,” said Kitty. “Especially if he tries to put his arm around you. You feel like a stick of cord wood.” She fastened the gauze petticoat over the stays and then brought the sky-blue muslin gown Sally Rose had laid out on a chair.
Was life going to be like this always, she wondered somewhat wistfully; helping Sally Rose to dress, letting Sally Rose in when the evening was over; herself never dressing up, never meeting anyone, never going anywhere? She wished that Tom Trask the logger had the daring British Gerry had. Gossip said that the New Hampshire men were in camp in Medford, and Medford wasn’t much farther than Boston. But he had no way of knowing she was so near him, of course. Perhaps when things got quieter after Concord Fight, he’d gone back to Newburyport to return her father’s gun. But now it seemed that battles were threatening again. Perhaps—
“Now my gold gauze kerchief and my scent bottle,” panted Sally Rose.
Kitty brought them. “Are you ready now?” she asked, trying to keep the envy from her tone. It wasn’t Sally Rose’s fault that she felt lonely and neglected, not Sally Rose’s fault at all.