THE DOLL AND HER FRIENDS. V0

She saw no reason why my clothes should not be
made to take off and on, as well as if I had been a
doll three feet high. So I had my plain gingham
gowns with strings and buttons; and my shifts
and petticoats run and felled, gathered and whipped,
hemmed and stitched, like any lady’s; and every
thing was neatly marked with my initial 5. But
what Susan and I were most particularly proud of,
was a pair of stays. They were a long time in
hand, for the fitting them was a most difficult job ;
but when finished, they were such curiosities of
needlework, that Susan’s neat mother herself used
to shew off the stitching and the eyelet-holes to
every friend that came to see her.

Among them, Sarah the housemaid, who was
sister to Susan’s father, often called in to ask after
us all. She was left in charge of the house where
my former friends had lived, and they sometimes
sent her commissions to execute for them. Then
she was sure to come and bring us news of the fa-
mily, as she always called Rose and her relations.
Sometimes she told us that Master William was a
little better; sometimes that she heard Miss Rose
was very much grown: she had generally some-
thing to tell that we were all glad to hear. One
evening’, soon after my apparel was quite completed,
I was sitting on my trunk, as pleased with myself