"Why yes!" said Miss Bezac—"and so I will. But, my dear, are you sure he would wear it?—and after all, isn't it likely he'll get everything of that sort he wants, in Paris? And then the size!—who's to tell what that should be? To be sure you could do the fronts, and have them made up afterwards—and of course he would wear anything you made.—I'll go right off and get my patterns."
Faith's confusion was startled. It was Miss Bezac's turn to look at her. She caught hold of the seamstress and brought her back to listening at least.
"Stop!—Miss Bezac!—you don't understand me. I want work!—I want work. I am not talking of making anything for anybody!—" Faith's eyes were truthful now, if ever they were.
"Well then—how can you work, if you won't make anything for anybody? Want work, Faith?—you don't mean to say all that story about Sarn Deacon's true? Do you know," said Miss Bezac, dropping into a chair and folding her hands, "when I heard that man had gone out of town, I said to myself, it would be a mercy if he never came back!"—which was the severest censure Miss Bezac ever passed upon anybody. "I really did," she went on,—"and now he's come, and I s'pose I've got to say that's a mercy too—and this,—though I wouldn't believe it last night."
"Then you have heard it?"
"My ears did, and they're pretty good ears too,—though I do get out of patience with them now and then."
"It's true," said Faith, "and it's nothing very dreadful. Mother and I have nothing to live upon but what I can make by butter; so I thought I would learn and take work of you, if you had it for me. I could soon understand it; and then you can let people bring you as much as they will—what you cannot do, I will do. I could think of nothing so pleasant;—no way to make money, I mean."
For a minute Miss Bezac sat quite still,—then she roused up.
"Nothing to live upon but butter!"—she said,—"well that's not much,—at least if there's ever so much of it you want something else. And what you want you must have—if you can get it. And I can get you plenty of work—and it's a good thing to understand this sort of work too, for he might carry you off to some random place where they wear calico just as they can put it on—and that wouldn't suit you, nor him neither. I don't believe this'll suit him though—and it don't me, not a bit. I'm as proud as a Lucifer match for anybody I love. But I'll make you proud of your work in no time. What'll you do first? embroider or stitch or cut out or baste or fit?"
"What you please—what you think best. But Miss Bezac, what are you 'proud' about?"