"Yes, my sister does beautiful work; and I used to do pretty well, too; but I am troubled a little with my eyes lately. The light isn't very good at night—and the gas is so expensive. I don't see quite as well as I used to do."
"How much can you do?" asked her visitor, who had been making a mental calculation.
"Why, I—It is hard to tell. I do the coarser work and my sister does the finishing; then she usually launders and I iron when I am able. I suffer with rheumatism so that I can't help her very much."
"I hope you make them pay you well for it," blurted out the girl.
"Why, we used to get a very good price. We got till recently seven cents apiece, but now it has been cut down—that was for everything, laundering and ironing, too. We are glad to get that."
"How on earth do you manage to live on it?"
"Oh! we live very well—very well, indeed," said the little lady cheerfully. "Mrs. Kale is very good to us. She lets us have the rooms cheaper than she would any one else. You see she used to know us when we lived back in the East. Her father was a clerk in our father's office, and her mother went to school with us. Then when we lost everything and were turned out, we found we had to make our own living and we came here to see about our case, and she found we were here—and that's the way we came to be here. But don't you let my sister know I told you about the sewing," she said, dropping her voice, as a brisk step was heard outside the door. "Ah! here she is now!" as at the moment the door opened and a brisk little old lady, almost the counterpart of her sister, except that she might have been ten years her junior, that is, sixty instead of seventy years of age, tripped into the room.
"Oh! my dear Miss Leigh, how good of you to come all the way out here to call on us! Sister, what in the world are you doing? Why will you do this? I can't keep her from amusing herself! (This with a shake of the head and a comical appeal for sympathy from her visitor.) Won't you walk into our sitting-room? Now, sister, do go and make yourself presentable. You know she will slave over all sorts of queer things. She really loves sewing and ironing. I'm quite ashamed to have you come into this pig-sty. Walk in, won't you?" And she led the way into a larger room adjoining the work-room, leaving Miss Leigh in doubt which was the more pathetic, the little old lady still delving over the ironing-board, making no pretence to conceal their poverty, or the other in her poor "best," trying to conceal the straits in which they were fallen.
Eleanor had observed that the older sister's gaze had constantly rested on the rose she wore, and as they were going out, the latter called her sister's attention to it. She said, she thought it possibly the most beautiful rose she had ever seen.
"Won't you have it?" said Eleanor, and unpinned it.