"My father died then, and I went to work. I
hadn't time to sew after that--I bought ready-made things. So when I
_was_ married--that was a long seven years afterwards--I did
have such lovely times buying organdies and laces and things and
cutting them out and making them! That was the summer Allan was
getting well."
She stared off at the wall for a moment, as she knelt up against the
green satin. "That was the loveliest summer I ever had--excepting
every one since."
She laughed a little, then prevented herself from further speech by
putting a frieze of pins in her mouth and beginning to do something
with the dress with them, one by one.
"Do you mind cutting into this?" she asked when that row was gone.
"The more the better!" said Joy with enthusiasm.
"It will make a stunning frock, with the silver net draped over the
pale-green satin... M'm. That silver iridescent girdle on the other
dress--the violet--can I have that, too?"
Joy ripped and handed with tremulously eager hands, while Phyllis
swiftly cut away the sleeves of the green dress and slashed a
_decolletage_, and draped the net over it and pinned on the
girdle.
"Try if you can get into that without being scratched," she invited,
lifting the frock gingerly off Dora and dropping it over Joy. Then
she wheeled her around to where she could see her reflection in the
tall pier-glass between the windows.
"Of course, that's rough," she told her; "but what do you think of
it, generally? Are there any changes you want?"
"Oh, not one!" Joy replied ecstatically, regarding the slim little
green and silver figure in the glass.
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