"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?"
"Young Rushton," returned the street surveyor, turning dummy's blank face for another fold of lace. "He's devoted, they say."
"I beg your pardon, madam." It was not a pardon asked for inattention, but a suggestion to Mrs. Murden to finish her business.
"A dress," continued Mrs. Murden, falteringly. "When could you make it?"
"Next week, or week after, perhaps, or early next month. You can call on Wednesday, and Miss Stringer will make an appointment to fit you," vouchsafed the attendant with the Jenny Lind silk apron. "You can send round the material in the mean time. Street or evening-dress?"
Strictly speaking, Mrs. Murden never had had an evening-dress; her silks were worn to the parties she usually attended. She had the precious purchase with her, and she considered it quite handsome enough for any ball that ever was given; but she would not have offered it to the young woman then on any consideration. She felt convicted of carrying her own bundles, and consequently carried this one home again, to be left next day by Mr. Murden on his way to the store.
Wednesday, and Mrs. Murden, dressed in her best, waited again upon Miss Stringer. This time, the lady herself appeared, and proved not to be quite so _withering_ as her assistant--principals seldom are. There were several fashionable ladies in waiting, all on the most gossipping and familiar terms with Miss Stringer, who was besieged with petitions for impossible work to be done in incredible haste, enforced by "You kind, good creature," and other terms of endearment written in the wheedling vocabulary. According to their piteous statements, not one of these splendidly attired women had a dress to cover them, or a cloak to shield them from the cold. Mrs. Murden had a fine opportunity of seeing and hearing while she waited exactly one hour for Miss Stringer. She had never been in such close contact with fashionable women before. Like many others of her own position in life, they had always been her envy and her admiration from a distance, as they swept across the pavement from their carriages, or brushed past her at the entrance of Bailey's or Levy's, at whose fascinating windows she was spell-bound. They could not have a wish ungratified, she was sure; their lives must pass like a fairy tale, all flowers and music. But, now that she saw them nearer, the wan and restless eyes, the half hidden wrinkles painfully distended in the glare of a bright winter's morning, and the querulous, fretful tones, told another story.