"And what will he wear?"

"Oh, it's a secret. I don't know. But I chose this particular dress
because it is so feminine, and it will be the first time he has seen me
in the clothes of a woman."

"Children, hurry, hurry!" cried the dressmaker, in a frenzy of sympathy.
"Minette, get down!" She slapped the grey cat tenderly as she lifted him
off the table. "Tell them in their language to hurry!" she exclaimed.
"_I_ never learnt it!"

But, after the breath of excitement, followed her poor despair, and she
dropped her hands in her lap. "It will never be done. I can't do it."

"Look, my dear, courage! The bodice is already done ... Have you had any
tea?"

"The children ate. I couldn't. I am too excited. But you are so calm.
You have no nerves. It isn't natural!"

Yet she ate a little piece of cake, scolding the cat and the children
with her mouth full, prowling restlessly above their bent heads as they
sewed and solidly sewed.

At the end of an hour and a half the nine frills were on the skirt, the
long hoops of wire had been run in, and the hooks and eyes on the belt.

Often the door opened and shut; visitors came and went in the room; the
milk woman put her head in, crying: "What a party!" and left the tiny
can of milk upon the floor: Elsa's mother came to call her daughter to