“I’ll speak for that cashmere peignoir that is just cut out.  I’ll make it nights, and earn me an ostrich band for my hat,” said Elise Mokey.

One spoke for one thing; one another; they were claimed beforehand, in this fashion, by a kind of work-women’s code; as publishers advertise foreign books in press, and keep the first right by courtesy.

Miss Proddle stopped her machine at last, and caught the news in her slow fashion hind side before.

“We might some of us have overwork, I should think; shouldn’t you?” she asked, blandly, of Miss Bree.

Aunt Blin smiled.  “They’ve been squabbling over it these five minutes,” she replied.

Aunt Blin was sure of some particular finishing, that none could do like her precise old self.

Kate Sencerbox jumped up impatiently, reaching over for some fringe.

“I shall have to give it up,” she whispered emphatically into Bel Bree’s ear.  “It’s no use your asking me to go to Chapel any more.  I ain’t sanctified a grain.  I did begin to think there was a kind of work of grace begun in me,—­but I can’t stand Miss Proddle!  What are people made to strike ten for, always, when it’s eleven?”

“I think we are all striking twelve” said Bel Bree.  “One’s too fast, and another’s too slow, but the sun goes round exactly the same.”

Miss Tonker came back, and the talk hushed.

“Clock struck one, and down they run, hickory, dickory, dock,” said Miss Proddle, deliberately, so that her voice brought up the subsiding rear of sound and was heard alone.

“What under the sun?” exclaimed Miss Tonker, with a gaze of mingled amazement, mystification, and contempt, at the poor old maiden making such unwonted noise.

“Yes’m,” said Kate Sencerbox.  “It is ‘under the sun,’ that we’re talking about; the way things turn round, and clocks strike; some too fast, and some too slow; and—­whether there’s anything new under the sun.  I think there is; Miss Proddle made a bright speech, that’s all.”

Miss Tonker, utterly bewildered, took refuge in solemn and supercilious disregard; as if she saw the joke, and considered it quite beneath remark.

“You will please resume your work, and remember the rules,” she said, and sailed down upon the cutters’ table.

There was a certain silk evening dress, of singular and indescribably lovely tint,—­a tea-rose pink; just the color of the blush and creaminess that mingle themselves into such delicious anonymousness in the exquisite flower.  It was all puffed and fluted till it looked as if it had really blossomed with uncounted curving petals, that showed in their tender convolutions each possible deepening and brightening of its wonderful hue.

It looked fragrant.  It conveyed a subtle sense of flavor.  It fed and provoked every perceptive sense.

It was not a dress to be hurried with; every quill and gather of its trimming must be “set just so;” and there was still one flounce to be made, and these others were only basted, as also the corsage.