"Why yes, you have; you are as miserly now as Dorcas herself; and I cannot bear to think of what you may become. Now tell me if you will not get a new gown and bonnet, and go to meeting?"
"I cannot," replied Rosina, decidedly.
"Well, do, if you have any mercy on us, buy a new gown to wear in the Mill, for your old one is so shabby. When calico is nine-pence a yard, I do think it is mean to wear such an old thing as that; besides, I should not wonder if it should soon drop off your back."
"Will it not last me one month more?" and Rosina began to mend the tattered dress with a very wistful countenance.
"Why, I somewhat doubt it; but at all events, you must have another pair of shoes."
"These are but just beginning to let in the water," said Rosina; "I think they must last me till another pay-day."
"Well, if you have a fever or consumption, Dorcas may take care of you, for I will not; but what," continued the chattering Elizabeth, "shall you buy that is new, Lucy?"
"Oh, a pretty new, though cheap, bonnet; and I shall also pay my quarter's pew-rent, and a year's subscription to the 'Lowell Offering;' and that is all that I shall spend. You have laughed much about old maids; but it was an old maid who took care of me when I first came to Lowell, and she taught me to lay aside half of every month's wages. It is a rule from which I have never deviated, and thus I have quite a pretty sum at interest, and have never been in want of anything."
"Well," said Elizabeth, "will you go out to-night with me, and we will look at the bonnets, and also the damask silk shawls? I wish to know the prices. How I wish to-day had been pay-day, and then I need not have gone out with an empty purse."
"Well, Lizzy, you know that 'to-morrow is pay-day,' do you not?"