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And Madame Bylles breathed it all the time; she dwelt in the courtly contagion. When she came in among her work-people, it was an advent of awe. It was as if all the elegance that had ever been made up there came floating and spreading and shining in, on one portly and magnificent person. But when Madame Bylles came in, in one of her majestic hurries!
But they are in human nature: you can call them up and scrutinize them for yourself. Madame Bylles receded like a tidal wave, having heaved up, and changed, and overwhelmed all things. A great buzz succeeded her departure; Miss Tonker followed her out upon the landing. "I'll speak for that cashmere peignoir that is just cut out.
Yet that great, surf-like flame, rushing up and on, was rioting at the very head of Summer Street, and plunging down Washington. Trinity Church was already a blazing wreck. "Has it come up Summer Street, or how?" asked Bel, helplessly, of helpless Miss Smalley. "Do you suppose Fillmer & Bylles is burnt?" "I must ask somebody!"
"Good for you, you dear, brave, blessed ace of hearts in a world where hearts are trumps! If you ain't one of the right old girls, then they don't make 'em, and never did!" Madame Bylles herself walked into the great work-room of Mesdames Fillmer & Bylles, one Saturday morning. Madame Bylles was a lady of great girth and presence.
She had gone right to work with her aunt at Fillmer & Bylles, she was bright and quick, knew how to run a "Wilcox & Gibbs," and had "some perception," the forewoman said, grimly; with a delicate implication that some others had not. Miss Tonker's praises always pared off on one side what they put on upon another.
There were dresses to be hurried; work for over-hours was to be given out. Miss Tonker was to use every exertion; temporary hands, if reliable, might be employed. All must be ready by Thursday next; Madame Bylles had given her word for it.
If Miss Tonker were sub-aristocratic, Madame Bylles was almost super-aristocratic, so cumulative had been the effect upon her style and manner of constant professional contact with the élite. Carriages had rolled up to her door, until she had got the roll of them into her very voice.
How would Bel or Kate have ever got a "five minutes' level rest," over their machine-driving at Fillmer & Bylles? Bel had said well, that girls and women need to work under cover; in a home, where they can "rest by snatches." A mere roof is not a cover; there may be driving afield in a great warehouse, as well as out upon a plantation.
"I don't think we should ever pick up such things, though, among the basting threads at Fillmer & Bylles'. They're lying round here, loose; in books and talk, and everything. They're going to have Crambo this evening, Kate. After these dishes are washed, I mean to try my hand at it. They were laughing about one Mrs. Scherman made last time; they couldn't quite remember it. I've got it.
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