"Besides, if I were to get
married, nobody else could," she would say. "What would become of all
the wedding-clothes for everybody else?" But sometimes, when Miss Prissy
felt extremely gracious, she would draw out of her little chest just the
faintest tip-end of a sigh, and tell some young lady, in a confidential
undertone, that one of these days she would tell her something,--and
then there would come a wink of her blue eyes and a fluttering of the
pink ribbons in her cap quite stimulating to youthful inquisitiveness,
though we have never been able to learn by any of our antiquarian
researches that the expectations thus excited were ever gratified.
In her professional prowess she felt a pardonable pride. What feats
could she relate of wonderful dresses got out of impossibly small
patterns of silk! what marvels of silks turned that could not be told
from new! what reclaimings of waists that other dress-makers had
hopelessly spoiled! Had not Mrs. General Wilcox once been obliged to
call in her aid on a dress sent to her from Paris? and did not Miss
Prissy work three days and nights on that dress, and make every stitch
of that trimming over with her own hands, before it was fit to be seen?
And when Mrs.
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