ot to give or
take a lesson in the languages. Permit me to say I never could submit to
wear an overskirt in the way you speak of--wrong side before--why, it
would look dreadfully."

"But Madame does not understand; I speak English so much in this country
that my own language gets knocked into smithereens. I beg pardon--into
confusion. Madame must be very perfect herself to detect it."

I felt a smile creeping over my lips. Really, sisters, I had been too
hard on the poor woman. It was not her fault if my ear was so very
correct that nothing but the purest accent could satisfy me. She saw
this look dawning upon my face, and I knew that she felt relieved by the
way her elbows settled down on the counter again.

"If madame will take a chair--that is, repose herself. Madame--"

"Excuse me," says I, benignly, for I didn't want to hurt her feelings
again. "_Mademoiselle_, if you please."

"Pardon me," says she, humbly.

"Just so," says I, benignly. "Now supposing we go on about this
ball-dress. How much silk will it take?"

The woman sat and thought to herself ever so long. Then she counted her
fingers over once or twice. Then she said she didn't exactly know how
much, which is the way with dress-makers all over the world, I do
believe.

"But one won't buy a dress without knowing how much to ask for," says I.
"Say twelve yards now?"

The woman lifted herself right off from the counter, and sat staring at
me.

"Twelve!" says she, "eighteen at the least."

I felt as if some one had struck me. Eighteen yards for a dress, and
gored all to pieces at that!

"Some of your dress-makers in Broadway would want more than that!" says
she, "and send for more and more after that."

I made no answer, but took up my satchel and walked straight out of the
door.

Eighteen yards of silk for a dress! The thought of it kept me awake all
night.

The next morning I went right up to the palatial residence of my cousin,
Emily Elizabeth Dempster, feeling that she would expect me to enter on
that subject about bringing up children, which was my duty; but I was so
down in the mouth about that dress, that everything like a moral idea
had just swamped itself in those eighteen yards of silk; and instead of
giving advice, I went into that house to beg for it, feeling all the
time as if somebody had dumped me down from a mighty high horse onto
that stone doorstep, and left me to travel home afoot. In fact, I felt
as if coming to that hou