"I'm not much tired. Miss Bezac, let the lilacs have the bottom of the dress, and the roses and lilies of the valley trim the body.—And it will be like a spotted flower-garden then!" said Faith laughing anew.
How little like her occupation she looked,—with her brown stuff dress, to be sure, as plain as possible; her soft brown hair also plain; her quaint little white ruffles; and that brilliant diamond ring flashing wherever her hand went! N.B. A plain dress on a pretty person has not the effect of plainness, since it lets that better be seen which is the highest beauty.
Up Miss Bezac's mountain road came a green coach drawn by two fat grey horses; the coachman in front and the footman behind being in the same state of plethoric comfort. They addressed themselves to the hill with no hasty approbation yet with much mind to have their own way, and the hill yielded the ground step by step. At Miss Bezac's door hill and horses made a pause.
"Coaches already!" said Miss Bezac,—"that's a sign of summer, as good as wild geese. And you'd think, Faith, not having had much experience, that it was the sign of another wedding dress—but nothing worse than a calico wrapper ever comes out of a coach like that."
"Why?"—said Faith looking amused.
"The people that drive such coaches drive 'em to town for a wedding dress," said Miss Bezac sagely. "There's a blue bird getting out of this one, to begin with."
While she spoke, a tiny foot emerged from the coach, and after it a dress of blue silk, which so far from "standing alone" followed softly every motion of the wearer. A simply plain shirred spring bonnet of blue and white silk, made the blue bird comparison not altogether unapt,—the bird was hardly more fair and dainty in his way than the lady in hers. She stood still for a minute, shading her eyes with her hand, and looking off down the road; a slight, delicate figure, with that sort of airy grace which has a natural poise for every position,—then she turned abruptly and knocked at the door.
Now it was Miss Bezac's custom to let applicants open and shut for themselves, her hands being often at a critical point of work; so in this case, with a refractory flower half adjusted—while Faith was in the intricacies of a knot of ribband, she merely cried, "Come in!" And the young lady came—so far as across the threshold,—there she stopped. A quick, sudden stop,—one little ungloved hand that looked as if it had never touched anything harsher than satin, clasped close upon its gloved companion; the shawl falling from her shoulders and shewing the bunch of crocuses in her belt; the fair, sweet, high bred face—sparkling, withal flushing like a June rose. For a minute she stood, her bright eyes seeing the room, the work, and Miss Bezac, but resting on Faith with a sort of intenseness of look that went from face to hand. Then her own eyes fell, and with a courteous inclination of her head, she came for ward and spoke.
"I was told," she said, advancing slowly to the table, and still with downcast eyes,—"I was told that—I mean—Can you make a sunbonnet for me, Miss Bezac?" She looked up then, but only at the little dressmaker, laying one hand on the table as if to support herself, and with a face grave enough to suit a nun's veil instead of a sunbonnet.
Faith's eyes were held on this delicate little figure with a sort of charm; she was very unlike the Pattaquasset models. At the antipodes from Miss Essie De Staff—etherial compared to the more solid proprieties of Sophy Harrison,—Faith recognized in her the type of another class of creatures. She drew back a little from the table, partly to leave the field clear to Miss Bezac, partly to please herself with a better view.