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I shan’t tell you what Mr Petherick said to that—but he was very co just a teeny weeny bit pleased with myself

And it’s extraordinary how things turn out for the best in this world Mr Rhodes has ot a dear little baby and—what do you think?—they asked odmother Wasn’t it nice of them?

Now I do hope you don’t think I’ve been running on too long…

The Dressmaker’s Doll

I

The doll lay in the big velvet-covered chair There was not entle, greyish-green gloos all blended with each other The doll blended, too She lay long and lireen-velvet clothes and her velvet cap and the painted mask of her face She was the Puppet Doll, the whim of Rich Wo the cushions of the divan She sprawled there, eternally liely alive She looked a decadent product of the twentieth century

Sybil Fox, hurrying in with some patterns and a sketch, looked at the doll with a faint feeling of surprise and bewilderet to the front of her ht to herself, ‘Nohat’s happened to the pattern of the blue velvet? Wherever have I put it? I’ and called up to the workroom

‘Elspeth, Elspeth, have you the blue pattern up there? Mrs Fellows-Broill be here any minute now’

She went in again, switching on the lights Again she glanced at the doll ‘Nohere on earth—ah, there it is’ She picked the pattern up from where it had fallen fro as the elevator came to a halt and in a minute or two Mrs Fellows-Brown, acco into the roo at a wayside station

‘It’s going to pour,’ she said, ‘simply pour!’

She threw off her gloves and a fur Alicia Coombe came in She didn’t always come in nowadays, only when special customers arrived, and Mrs Fellows-Broas such a customer

Elspeth, the forewoman of the workroom, came doith the frock and Sybil pulled it over Mrs Fellows-Brown’s head

‘There,’ she said, ‘I think it’s good Yes, it’s definitely a success’

Mrs Fellows-Brown turned sideways and looked in the mirror

‘Ito my behind’

‘You’re o,’ Sybil assured her

‘I’h Iabout the way you cut, it really does ot one—I hed and gingerly smoothed the troublesome portion of her anatomy ‘It’s always been a bit of a trial to me,’ she said ‘Of course, for years I could pull it in, you know, by sticking out ot a stomach noell as a behind And I mean—well, you can’t pull it in both ways, can you?’

Alicia Coombe said, ‘You should see some of my customers!’

Mrs Fellows-Brown experimented to and fro