Cicely and Other Stories | Page 3

other way for Cicely to live but to take the small wages madame offered, and be thankful that she was having such an opportunity to learn the dressmaker's trade. She could set up a little establishment of her own some day, when she went back to Marcelle.
Cicely did not hear the final words of Miss Shelby's argument, but a few minutes later madame came back to the workroom with a bundle in her arms. There was a worried frown on her face as she unrolled it and called sharply to her forewoman.
Every seamstress in the room bent forward with an exclamation of pleasure as the piece of dress-goods was unrolled. It was a soft, shimmering silk, whose creamy surface was covered with rosebuds, as dainty and pink as if they had been blown across it from some June garden. Cicely caught her breath with a little gasp of delight, and thought again of the sweet face that had smiled on her. Miss Balfour would look like a rose herself in such a dress.
The next day Cicely saw the cutter at work on it, and then the forewoman distributed the various parts into different hands. Cicely wished that she could have a part in making it. She would have enjoyed putting her finest stitches into something to be worn by the beautiful girl who had smiled on her. It would be almost like doing it for a friend. But she was kept busy stitching monotonous bias folds.
Just as she was slipping on her jacket to go home that evening, the forewoman came up to her with a bundle. "I am sorry, Cicely," she said, "but I shall have to ask you to take some work home with you to-night. We are so rushed with all these orders we never can get through unless every one of you works over-hours. Miss Shelby's extra order is just the last straw that'll break the camel's back, I'm afraid. Try to get every bit of this hand work done some way or other before morning."
It was no part of the rose-pink party dress that Cicely had to work on; only more monotonous bias folds. But as she turned up the lamp in her chilly little room and began the weary stitching again, she felt that in a way it was for Miss Balfour, and she sewed on uncomplainingly.
She had intended to write to Marcelle that evening in order that her sister might have a letter on New Year's day, but there would be no time now. She wrapped a shawl around her and spread a blanket over her feet, but more than once she had to stop and warm her stiff fingers over the lamp. It was long after midnight when she finished, and she crept into bed, her head still throbbing with a dull ache.
"The last day of the old year!" she said to herself, as she waded through a newly fallen snow to her work the next morning. "Oh, Marcelle, how can I ever hold out ten months longer? Nobody in this whole city cares that I caught cold sitting up in a room without a fire, or that I feel so lonely and bad this minute that I can't keep back the tears."
It seemed to Cicely that she had never had such a wretched morning. The loss of sleep the night before left her languid and nervous. Her cold seemed to grow worse every moment, and madame and the forewoman were both unusually cross. She felt ill and feverish when she took her seat again after the lunch hour.
Presently madame came in, looking sharply about her, and walked up to Cicely with the rosebud silk skirt in her hands. "Here!" she said, hurriedly. "Put ze band on zis. Ze ozair woman who do zis alway have gone home ill. An' be in one beeg haste, also, for ze time have arrive for ze las' fitting. You hear?"
Cicely took it up, pleased and smiling. After all, she was to have a part in making the beautiful rose gown that would surely give Miss Balfour such pleasure. Her quick needle flew in and out, but her thoughts flew still faster.
She had had a gown like that herself once; at least it was something like that pattern, although the material was nothing but lawn. She had worn it first on the day when she was fifteen years old, and her mother had surprised her by a birthday party. And they had had tea out in the old rose-garden, and had pelted one another with the great velvety king roses, and she had torn her hand on a thorn. Ah, how cruelly it hurt! It was a very present pain that made her cry out now, not the memory of that old one.
Some one had overturned