“‘I don’t think, ma’am, we have time to wait for the dresses to be cut out,’ says I, ‘we haven’t, neither, got the linings nor the sewing-silk, nor the other trimmings.’
“‘It will take me but a few minutes,’ says she, making another nick in the silk, ‘for I cut by a patent measure; and I always find the trimmings myself—I can then have them to suit me, and, you know, it all amounts to the same thing in the end;’ and she snatched up a piece of Holland from the table, and began measuring off a pair of backs. ‘Stop, if you please, ma’am,’ says I, ‘we’ve made no bargain yet, and it’s nothing but what I have a right to expect, to know what you are to charge me.’
“‘It will be difficult to tell,’ says she, ‘before the dresses are finished—it is not our custom to settle the prices until we have seen how the work is done.’
“‘But, ma’am,’ says I, ‘I insist upon a rough guess.’
“‘Then let me see,’ says she, ‘supposing we say something like five or six dollars each, trimmings included, for the young ladies’ dresses, and four for yours.’
“‘Why, bless my soul!’ says I, ‘I could get cord, and hooks and eyes, and sewing-silk, and linings enough for all three, for a dollar; and as to paying five or six dollars for making a dress, I’ll never do it in the world; it’s outrageous—it’s an imposition,’ and I snatched my silk out of her hands in short order.
“‘It’s too late, now,’ says she, pert enough, ‘to talk about that, as soon as the scissors are put in the work, it is considered as taken in.’
“‘It’s we that are taken in, or we came pretty near it,’ says I; and I bundled the silk under my arm, and the girls took up their balzarines; but such a tongue-lashing as we got, I never heard the like of it in my life before; and you may be sure I didn’t take it all quietly—I’m not very mealy-mouthed; and if it hadn’t been for Easter Ann telling me loud enough for her to hear, ‘Come along, maw, it’s not dignified to be disputing with a mantua-maker,’ she’d likely have got the worst of it.
“The girls were so put out that they didn’t want to try any more; but I’m not one to be brow-beat; I had got my spirit up, and I made them go on to the next. When we came to the house, there stood two splendid carriages, with black fellows about them that had gold bands on their hats, and velvet on their coats, and what not. ‘Don’t let’s go in,’ says Jane Louyza; ‘I dare say the house is full of customers already;’ and just then another coach and pair drives up, and two or three girls, dressed to death, jumps out, and orders their niggers to bring in their parcels—a whole carriage load, pretty near—so, thinks I, there’s not much encouragement for us to go in there, sure enough. We came away, and there hasn’t been a stitch put in our dresses yet.”
I gave my visiters a very early tea, and having no excuse for billeting themselves on me for another night, they made their departure before dark. They did not, however, forget to invite themselves for the following day.