"Good afternoon, Dolly," said one of her neighbors, coming into the back room, and tossing off her shawl, which served the double purpose of cloak and bonnet. "Who is that pretty girl you have there in the shop?"

"Who can she mean?" asked Dolly of Daffy, in affected surprise.

"Why," said Miss Tufts, anticipating Daffy, "that pretty creature with the curly hair and large eyes, who is rolling up your ribbons; she is a real beauty."

"She can't mean Rose?" asked Dolly of Daffy, looking innocent again.

(Simple Daffy, puzzled to know how Dolly wished her to answer, contented herself with a little doubtful shake of the head.)

"Call her pretty?" said Dolly, returning from a tour of observation into the shop, as if she had not the slightest idea who was there; "call Rose pretty. Well, I'm beat now."

"Why—don't you?" asked Miss Tufts. "I don't see how you can help it; her hair curls so beautiful, and she has such a way with her, it took right hold of me; her voice sounds as if a little bird was singing in her mouth."

"Ridikilis!" said Dolly; "how you talk. Has your pa got over his pleurisy? That's right. How do you like this ribbon? It is new style, you see; one side is green, and the other red."

The visitor's eyes being fixed on the ribbon which she had taken to the window to examine, Dolly took the opportunity to whisper to Daffy, "Go tell Rose to go out of the shop into the back part of the house."

"It is a first-rate ribbon," said Miss Tufts, refolding it; "but look, there's Mrs. Clifton going down street. She hasn't held her head up since her baby died. How she does take it to heart, Dolly."

"Yes," said Dolly, snipping off the end of her thread, "that's the way with those people who are always talking about 'another and a better world.' I don't see but they hold on to this one with just as tight a grip as other folks."

"It isn't nature not to feel bad, when a friend dies," remarked Miss Tufts.

"Well, there's no need of making such a blubbering about it," said Dolly. "I didn't, when our Maria died, I restrained my feelings; it is perfectly disgusting."

"Here Daffy," said Dolly, as Miss Tufts tossed her shawl over her head, and bade them good-by, "here's the trimmings Nancy Dawes brought for her bonnet; it is not much matter how you put them on, she has no taste you know; it will be all one to her, if you only tell her it is the fashion; that is the right kind of customer for me, your knowing people are a sight of bother, with their fussing. Daffy, mind you save me enough of Nancy Dawes's ribbon for a bow for my neck, three quarters will make a very decent one, but I had rather have a yard; and Daffy, when Lawyer Grant's wife comes in to ask how much ribbon it will take to trim her bonnet, mind that you tell her a yard extra. She has all her ribbons from the city, and they are just the thing for neck-ribbons. She never will know but it is all put on her bonnet, when the bows are cut up and twisted together; she never asks no questions, there's nothing mean about Lawyer Grant's wife; she don't mind milliners and mantua-makers taking their little perquisites."

"Sometimes I think it isn't right," said Daffy.

"You do? that's a good one, I'd like to see your year's profits on any other system. Why, Mrs. Bond gets all hers and her children's aprons out of the silk, and de-laine, and thibet-cloth that ladies bring her for dresses; it is all right enough. We must take it out some way, when ladies beat us down to the lowest possible price for work; talk to me about its not being right—'self-preservation is the first law of natur,' as the Bible says."

Daffy did not dispute the questionable authority of the quotation, but rolling the responsibility of the anticipated sin she had assumed, off on Dolly's broad shoulders, proceeded to do her bidding.