And so there's not a word to be said. We owe you time that
we've taken, and more that we mean to take before you go. I'll tell you
what for, when it's necessary."
It was a nicer matter to get the Josselyns to be helped than to help. It
was not easy for them to bring forth their breadths and their linings,
and their braids that were to be pieced, and their trimmings that
were to be turned, and to lay bare to other eyes all their little
economies of contrivance; but Miss Craydocke managed it by simple
straightforwardness,--by not behaving as if there were anything to be
glossed over or ignored. Instead of hushing up about economies, she
brought them forward, and gave them a most cheery and comfortable, not
to say dignified air. It was all ordinary matter of course,--the way
everybody did, or ought to do. This was the freshest end of this
breadth, and should go down; this other had a darn that might be cut
across, and a straight piecing made, for which the slope of the skirt
would allow,--_she_ should do it so; that hem might be taken off
altogether and a new one turned; this was a very nice trimming, and
plenty of it, and the wrong side was brighter than the right; she knew a
way of joining worsted braid that never showed,--you might have a dozen
pieces in the binding of a skirt and not be noticed.
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