“We told you, Mrs. Allanby, what a pucker we were in about getting our dresses made. Before we left the tavern, we went to Mrs. Scrooge’s room—the old lady, you remember, that took us to the auction; and she let us know how we might snap our fingers at the mantua-makers. She said there were women that go out sewing by the day, and that by hiring one of them, and helping along with the easy parts ourselves, we might have our dresses made for little or nothing. At the hotel we couldn’t have done it, for paying board for a seamstress would have been but a poor speculation; but now that we are in a private family visiting, there would be some sense in it. I dare say she could sit in one of our sleeping-rooms, and the little one woman would eat couldn’t be of much consequence to you.”
“I do not know where such a person could be found,” said I.
“Oh, that is all settled already. Mrs. Scrooge is to call for us to go to a second-hand furniture store this morning, and she promised that she would take us to a seamstress that goes out for thirty-one cents a-day.”
Again I succumbed to my inability to say “no.” Mrs. Scrooge did call—a vinegar-faced old lady, with a voice sharp enough to have given one an ear-ache; and I learned that the seamstress was engaged, though she could not come until the latter end of the week. The next day Mrs. Scrooge came again, and my trio departed to a second auction. The result of this expedition was another load of furniture, driven up to the door in the middle of the day. The first article discharged was a sideboard, capacious enough, almost, to serve as a pantry, with broken locks and an impaired foot, which fell off in the difficult descent of the main body from the wagon; then came a dressing-bureau, of scarcely smaller dimensions, with defective knobs and a low, distorted glass; and, lastly, a wash-stand, with a cracked marble slab. Mrs. Dilberry stood on the front steps, superintending their passage into the house, and giving orders at the top of her voice, when I ran out to protest against their being carried up stairs, which she was directing—the broken wall of the entry serving as a warning to me—and to propose their being stored in the wash-house. Whilst I was endeavoring to make myself heard, my husband, with a wondering countenance, presented himself before me. In my joy I dragged him into the first room, and shut the door.
“My dear Mary,” said he, “I was not right certain whether it was proper for me to come into my own house—what is the meaning of this commotion?”
I gave him a hurried narration of my trials, at which he laughed immoderately, as I thought, and at once he opened to me a prospect of relief. “I have made arrangements with one of my friends,” said he, “to send you on an excursion of several weeks among the mountains, to matronize his daughters. The young ladies are now, I suppose, on their way to meet you with carriage and servants, and, as soon as possible, you must be off. I shall lose no time to make the announcement to your visiters. As they have attached themselves to you merely for their own convenience, there will be nothing unfair in getting rid of them for ours.”
In half an hour my guests were on flatteringly familiar terms with Mr. Allanby, to whom they confessed that they had dreaded his return, as they were afraid they could not feel so “free and easy” if there was a gentleman in the house. “Now that we have seen you,” observed the old lady, “we would rather have you here than not; you appear to suit us exactly, and we will be all the better off for having some one to beau us about.”
I own I could not myself have had courage to lower them from such a height of contentment, but my husband was less qualmish, and Mrs. Dilberry soon afforded him a desirable opportunity to approach the unexpected topic, by saying, “I suppose if you had known your wife had found such good company to cheer her up, you’d have been in no hurry to come back.”
“At least,” returned Mr. Allanby, “I should not have made a positive promise to send her from home as soon as her trunk could be packed.” He explained the arrangements he had made, and with all proper courtesy regretted that they should be peremptory.
“And what do you say, Mrs. Allanby, to your husband taking so much upon himself without leave or license from you?” asked the old lady, winking at me.