inking about the dressmaker, and how Fanny would ask him again to
take some of that money out of the bank to pay her, and how the
money was already taken out.

That evening, when he sat down to the tea-table furnished with the
best china and frosted cake in honor of the dressmaker, and heard
the radiant talk about Ellen's new frills and tucks, he had a cold
feeling at his heart. He was ashamed to look at the dressmaker.

"You won't know your daughter when we get her fixed up for Vassar,"
she told Andrew, with a smirk which covered her face with a network
of wrinkles under her blond fluff of hair.

"Do have some more cake, Miss Higgins," said Fanny. She was radiant.
The image of her daughter in her new gowns had gone far to
recompense her for all her disappointments in life, and they had not
been few. "What, after all, did it matter?" she asked herself, "if a
woman was growing old, if she had to work hard, if she did not know
where the next dollar was coming from, if all the direct personal
savor was fast passing out of existence, when one had a daughter who
looked like that?" Ellen, in a new blue dress, was ravishing. The
mother looked at her when she was trying it on, with the possession
of love, and the dressmaker as if she herself had created her.

After supper Ellen had to try on the dress again for her father, and
turn about slowly that he might see all its fine points.

"There, what do you think of that, Andrew?" asked Fanny,
triumphantly.

"Ain't she a lady?" asked the dressmaker.

"It is very pretty," said Andrew, smiling with gloomy eyes. Then he
heaved a great sigh, and went out of the south door to the steps.
"Your father is tired to-night," Fanny said to Ellen with a meaning
of excuse for the dressmaker.

The dressmaker reflected shrewdly on Andrew's sigh when she was on
her way home. "Men don't sigh that way unless there's money to pay,"
she thought. "I don't believe but he has been speculating." Then
she wondered if there was any doubt about her getting her pay, and
concluded that she would ask for it from day to day to make sure.

So the next night after tea she asked, with one of her smirks of
amiability, if it would be convenient for Mrs. Brewster to pay her
that night. "I wouldn't ask for it until the end of the week," said
she, "but I have a bill to pay." She said "bill" with a murmur
which carried conviction of its deception. Fanny flushed angrily.
"Of course," said she, "Mr. Brewster c