And in this style I fretted away for three or four minutes, while Netty stood waiting for my decision as to what Alice was to wear.

“Shall she put on the white muslin?” she at length asked.

“No, indeed!  Certainly not!  A pretty condition she’d have it in before night!  Go and get me the red and white frock, and I will mend it.  You aught to have told me it was torn this morning.  You knew there was nothing for the child to put on ut this.  I never saw such a set as you are!”

Netty flirted away, grumbling to herself.  When she came in, she threw the frock into my lap with manner so insolent and provoking that I could hardly keep from breaking out upon her and rating her soundly.  One thing that helped to restrain me was the recollection of sundry ebullitions of a like nature that had neither produced good effects nor left my mind in a state of much self-respect or tranquillity.

I repaired the torn sleeve, while Netty stood by.  It was the work of but five minutes.

“Be sure,” said I, as I handed the garment to Netty, “to see that one of Alice’s frocks is ironed first thing to-morrow morning.”

The girl heard, of course, but she made no answer.  That was rather more of a condescension than she was willing to make just then.

Instead of thinking how easily the difficulty of the clean frock for Alice had been gotten over, I began fretting myself because I had not been able to procure a seamstress, although the children were “all in rags and tatters.”

“What is to be done?” I said, half crying, as I began to rock myself backward and forward in the great rocking-chair.  “I am out of all heart.”  For an hour I continued to rock and fret myself, and then came to the desperate resolution to go to work and try what I could do with my own hands.  But where was I to begin?  What was I to take hold of first?  All the children were in rags.

“Not one of them has a decent garment to his back,” said I.

So, after worrying for a whole hour about what I should do, and where I should begin, I abandoned the idea of attempting any thing myself, in despair, and concluded the perplexing debate by taking another hearty crying-spell.  The poor washerwoman was forgotten during most of this afternoon.  My own troubles were too near the axis of vision, and shut out all other objects.

The dusky twilight had begun to fall, and I was still sitting idly in my chamber, and as unhappy as I could be.  I felt completely discouraged.  How was I to get along?  I had been trying for weeks, in vain, to get a good seamstress; and yet had no prospect of obtaining one.  I was going to lose my cook, and, in all probability, my chambermaid.  What would I do?  No light broke in through the cloudy veil that overhung my mind.  The door opened, and Agnes, who had come up to my room, said—­

“Mrs. Partridge is done.”

I took out my purse, and had selected therefrom the change necessary to pay the washerwoman, when a thought of her caused me to say—­