appointing several
persons, and that she was very sorry, but that she could only undertake
two sets of the things in the time.

Mrs. Robson, the mother, was vexed and half angry. She said she hated
common shop-work, and ready-made things, and she had taken a fancy to
what she had seen of Miss Lee's work. She even offered to increase the
payment, but Rose Lee stood firm. She said there was no one at hand whom
she could hire and entrust with such work, and that she could not feel
it right to undertake it, as it would only lead to breaking her
engagements.

"O, very well; I see you don't care to oblige me," said the lady,
twirling off with her very tight skirts, and whisking up a train like a
fish's tail. "No, I will not break the set. I am not accustomed to
refusals."

And off the two ladies drove, and Jessie told the story at home with a
great deal of spirit.

"Now that's just like Rose Lee," said Grace. "She won't make a bit of
exertion for her own good!"

"Well," said Jessie, "you know we should have to work awfully hard if
she took it in hand."

"I suppose she would have paid you for extra hours," said Grace sharply.

"Miss Rose said it was the way to ruin a girl's health to set her to do
such a lot of work," said Jessie.

"And quite right too," put in her mother. "I knew a girl who was
apprenticed to a dressmaker, and sat up five nights when they had two
black jobs one after the other, and that girl's eyes never was the same
again!"

"Besides," added Jessie, "there's so much in hand."

"Well, it might not do to offend Mrs. or Miss Manners, but--"

"O, it is not that! The children's things were sent home yesterday. I
wish you could have seen them, they were loves; and Miss Manners has got
a new dress from London. She let Miss Lee see it, and take the pattern
of the trimming. No, but Mrs. Drew has sent her Swiss cambric to be made
up for Miss Alice, and Miss Pemberton has a new carmelite to be
finished, and there are some dresses for the maids at the hall, all
promised by Midsummer day."

"Pooh! Customers like that can wait."

"I don't see that it is a bit more right to disappoint them than any one
else," said Jessie sturdily.

"Old Miss Pemberton, to be compared with a lady like that!" exclaimed
Grace.

"It doesn't make much odds as to right or wrong," said Jessie, "but I
don't think Mrs. Robson is much of a lady, to judge by the way she gave
her orders and flounced off in a huff."

"A lady," sa