"I wouldn't trust Miss Johns to put scissors into that silk anyhow," Mrs. Keyser said; for, having relations living in Spruce Street, she was considered to have unusual claims to knowingness in matters of fashion, and was not slow to put them forth.
"Surely," thought Mrs. Murden, "it never would do. Miss Johns was well enough for a plain dress; but a two dollar silk!"
"How I wish you could afford to have it made at Miss Stringer's now," continued Mrs. Keyser. "Emma Louisa always has everything done there, and so does Mrs. Coleman, she's so intimate with, and Mrs. George Barker. You never saw such splendid fits."
It is presumed that Mrs. Keyser did not allude to convulsions; but Mrs. Hopkins always elevated her little flat nez on a mention of these Spruce Street relatives; for every one knows she said to Miss Lippincott, as they walked down the street together—
"Every one knows that she never is invited there when any one else is expected, not even to the wedding. I wouldn't own such relations, if I had shoals of them; would you, Miss Lippincott?"
"No, indeed," returned that lady, with unusual animation for her, for she was rather worn out with allusions to the Spruce Street relations herself, in an intimacy of some months' standing.
It was a very daring thing, but young Mrs. Murden, revolving all these things in her mind, the basque, the open front, Miss Johns's lack of style, and that she was employed by all her acquaintances, came to the conclusion that her dress should be made at a Chestnut Street shop, although she had never had anything made out of the house before. "But it's once in a lifetime," as she said to Mr. Murden, walking down with him after dinner; and he, who had never seen a fashionable mantuamaker's bill, thought it of very little consequence to whom the important commission was intrusted.
The little woman felt rather nervous, it is true, on entering such awful precincts as the shop of Miss Stringer, which was by no means diminished by the manner of the lady in waiting, who pursued, at the same time, her gossip with another damsel seated in the window with a "dummy" on her knee, shaping a cap on its unconscious head, not less empty, perhaps, than the one it was destined to grace.
"I should like a dress made, if you could do it," stammered forth Mrs. Murden as the girl leisurely surveyed her from head to foot, taking an exact inventory of her dress, and knowing to a fraction the cost of every article.
"Certainly, madam." And then over her shoulder to the cap-maker at the window: "Is it possible that she has white feathers on a blue bonnet? I wouldn't wear such a thing myself. Who's with her?"