"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?"
"Oh yes, and the beautiful pay-master will come in, rattling his coppers so nicely."
"Beautiful!" exclaimed Lucy; "do you call our pay-master _beautiful_?"
"Why, I do not know that he would look beautiful, if he was coming to cut my head off; but really, that money-box makes him look delightfully."
"Well, Lizzy, it _does_ make a great difference in his appearance, I know; but if we are going out to-night, we must be in a hurry."
"If you go by the post-office, do ask if there is a letter for me," said Rosina.
"Oh, I hate to go near the post-office in the evening; the girls act as wild as so many Caribbee Indians. Sometimes I have to stand there an hour on the ends of my toes, stretching my neck, and sticking out my eyes; and when I think I have been pommeled and jostled long enough, I begin to 'set up on my own hook,' and I push away the heads that have been at the list as if they were committing it all to memory, and I send my elbows right and left in the most approved style, till I find myself 'master of the field.'"