[Illustration: [_Facsimile_]] [Illustration: PRINCE BISMARCK’S LETTER] I wanted all last winter to tell you about my “dressmaking” and describe to you my “shop.” I knew it would interest you if no one else. Now, wasn’t that the last thing you would have thought of, that I should come to Europe and set up _dressmaking_, and _French_ dressmaking at that? I knew the fact would be a little surprise to most of my old friends who knew me best, but to you I imagine it a matter of bewildering astonishment. Well, you should have seen the patterns! “Did I have patterns?” Didn’t I? And didn’t I cut them myself? And didn’t I direct all the making until I had imparted my wonderful art to others? And _you_ think my garments were fearfully and wonderfully made! Well, that opinion comes of your being an _old_ maid and so particular. I assure you, Miss Annie Childs, that they were nice garments and prettily cut and well made, and I found them in excellent demand; every one wanted them and never a word of _complaint of the price_; everybody seemed to be perfectly convinced that they were cheap enough at my first offer. I had ten young girls (like yours) dressmakers, and from one to three men “tailors” who worked twelve hours a day, but only with the shears, never an hour’s sewing; and no one sewed at my “shop”; only those who must be taught to take something out and do it over. And we made dresses and sacques and petticoats and chemises and aprons and hoods and mittens and pantaloons, vests, blouses, shirts, socks, of all kinds of material and all sizes that ever the tiniest baby grew to. Oh, yes, and such lots of things for babies,--little dresses, little bonnets, cloaks, blankets, two thousand garments every week. I don’t think they were gored and flounced and frilled as much as yours, Miss Annie Childs, but they were strong and warm and handsome. It is true all my seamstresses had not such nimble, delicate fingers as one might desire for the finest work; they wore very large thimbles sometimes; but there were plenty of small fingers in the family. They came very gladly twice a week to see me and showed me with great pride their successful efforts; always the work came home in the market basket, and always I knew that that same basket would load the other way with bread and a little meat if it were possible, but this was not always. But it was such a comfort to see them, week by week, grow better clothed themselves and the children, till by and by a woman and her baby came to look only like a big and a little bundle of the same clothing she carried in her basket. And all the working-people of the city came to look like walking bundles of the same clothing. To be sure, it took away something from the picturesque style of the city as I first saw it when at least ten thousand human beings were perfectly arranged for models for the painter and the sculptor. I