"Oh, I shall get one of those damask silk shawls which are now so fashionable. How splendid it will look! Let me see; this is a five weeks' payment, and I have earned about two dollars per week; and so have you, and Rosina; and Dorcas has earned a great deal more, for she has extra work. Pray what new thing shall _you_ get, Dorcas?" added she, laughing. "She will get a new bank book, I suppose," replied Lucy. "She has already deposited in her own name five hundred dollars, and now she has got a book in the name of her little niece, and I do not know but she will soon procure another. She almost worships them, and Sundays she stays here reckoning up her interest while we are at meeting." "I think it is far better," retorted Dorcas, "to stay at home, than to go to meeting, as Elizabeth does, to show her fine clothes. I do not make a mockery of public worship to God." "There, Lizzy, you must take that, for you deserved it," said Lucy to her friend. "You know you _do_ spend almost all your money in dress." "Well," said Elizabeth, "I shall sow all my wild oats now, and when I am an old maid I will be as steady, but _not quite_ so stingy as Dorcas. I will get a bank book, and trot down Merrimack street as often as she does, and everybody will say, 'what a remarkable change in Elizabeth Walters! She used to spend all her wages as fast as they were paid her, but now she puts them in the bank. She will be quite a fortune for some one, and I have no doubt she will get married for what she _has_, if not for what she is.' But I cannot begin now, and I don't see how _you_ can, Rosina." "I have not begun," replied Rosina, in a low sorrowful tone. "Why yes, you have; you are as miserly now as Dorcas herself; and I cannot bear to think of what you may become. Now tell me if you will not get a new gown and bonnet, and go to meeting?" "I cannot," replied Rosina, decidedly. "Well, do, if you have any mercy on us, buy a new gown to wear in the Mill, for your old one is so shabby. When calico is nine-pence a yard, I do think it is mean to wear such an old thing as that; besides, I should not wonder if it should soon drop off your back." "Will it not last me one month more?" and Rosina began to mend the tattered dress with a very wistful countenance. "Why, I somewhat doubt it; but at all events, you must have another pair of shoes." "These are but just beginning to let in the water," said Rosina; "I think they must last me till another pay-day." "Well, if you have a fever or consumption, Dorcas may take care of you, for _I_ will not; but what," continued the chattering Elizabeth, "shall you buy that is new, Lucy?"