‘Well,’ said Miss Prissy, ‘I haven’t got anybody to care for but myself. I was telling sister Elizabeth, one time (she’s married and got four children), that I could take a storm a good deal easier than she could, ’cause I hadn’t near so many sails to pull down; and now, you just look to me for the Doctor’s shirts, ’cause, after this, they shall all come in ready to put on, if I have to sit up till morning. And I hope, Miss Scudder, you can trust me to make them; for if I do say it myself, I a’n’t afraid to do fine stitching ’longside of anybody,—and hemstitching ruffles, too; and I haven’t shown you yet that French stitch I learned of the nuns;—but you just set your heart at rest about the Doctor’s shirts. I always thought,’ continued Miss Prissy, laughing, ‘that I should have made a famous hand about getting up that tabernacle in the wilderness, with the blue and the purple and fine-twined linen; it’s one of my favourite passages, that is;—different things, you know, are useful to different people.’
‘Well,’ said Mrs. Scudder, ‘I see that it’s our call to be a remnant small and despised, but I hope we sha’n’t shrink from it. I thought, when I saw all those fashionable people go out Sunday, tossing their heads and looking so scornful, that I hoped grace would be given me to be faithful.’
‘And what does the Doctor say?’ said Miss Prissy.
‘He hasn’t said a word; his mind seems to be very much lifted above all these things.’
‘La, yes,’ said Miss Prissy, ‘that’s one comfort; he’ll never know where his shirts come from; and besides that, Miss Scudder,’ she said, sinking her voice to a whisper, ‘as you know, I haven’t any children to provide for,—though I was telling Elizabeth t’other day, when I was making up frocks for her children, that I believed old maids, first and last, did more providing for children than married women: but still I do contrive to slip away a pound-note, now and then, in my little old silver teapot that was given to me when they settled old Mrs. Simpson’s property (I nursed her all through her last sickness, and laid her out with my own hands), and, as I was saying, if ever the Doctor should want money, you just let me know.’
‘Thank you, Miss Prissy,’ said Mrs. Scudder; ‘we all know where your heart is.’