"Oh, a pretty new, though cheap, bonnet; and I shall also pay my quarter's pew-rent, and a year's subscription to the 'Lowell Offering;' and that is all that I shall spend. You have laughed much about old maids; but it was an old maid who took care of me when I first came to Lowell, and she taught me to lay aside half of every month's wages. It is a rule from which I have never deviated, and thus I have quite a pretty sum at interest, and have never been in want of anything." "Well," said Elizabeth, "will you go out to-night with me, and we will look at the bonnets, and also the damask silk shawls? I wish to know the prices. How I wish to-day had been pay-day, and then I need not have gone out with an empty purse." "Well, Lizzy, _you_ know that 'to-morrow is pay-day,' do you not?" "Oh yes, and the beautiful pay-master will come in, rattling his coppers so nicely." "Beautiful!" exclaimed Lucy; "do you call our pay-master _beautiful_?" "Why, I do not know that he would look beautiful, if he was coming to cut my head off; but really, that money-box makes him look delightfully." "Well, Lizzy, it _does_ make a great difference in his appearance, I know; but if we are going out to-night, we must be in a hurry." "If you go by the post-office, do ask if there is a letter for me," said Rosina. "Oh, I hate to go near the post-office in the evening; the girls act as wild as so many Caribbee Indians. Sometimes I have to stand there an hour on the ends of my toes, stretching my neck, and sticking out my eyes; and when I think I have been pommeled and jostled long enough, I begin to 'set up on my own hook,' and I push away the heads that have been at the list as if they were committing it all to memory, and I send my elbows right and left in the most approved style, till I find myself 'master of the field.'" "Oh, Lizzy! you know better; how can you do so?" "Why, Lucy, pray tell me what _you_ do?" "I go away, if there is a crowd; or if I feel very anxious to know whether there is a letter for me, the worst that I do is to try 'sliding and gliding.' I dodge between folks, or slip through them, till I get waited upon. But I know that we all act worse there than anywhere else; and if the post-master speaks a good word for the factory girls, I think it must come against his conscience, unless he has seen them somewhere else than in the office." "Well, well, we must hasten along," said Elizabeth; "and stingy as Rosina is, I suppose she will be willing to pay for a letter; so I will buy her one, if I can get it. Good evening, ladies," continued she, tying her bonnet; and she hurried after Lucy, who was already down the stairs, leaving Dorcas to read her tract at leisure, and Rosina to patch her old calico gown, with none to torment her. CHAPTER II.