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The first thing which marked the influence of national character and taste was, that English models and designs almost immediately disappeared, only a few such, consisting of those which had been given to the art by masters of design like Morris and Marcus Ward, were retained, and American needlewomen boldly took to the representation of vivid and graceful groups of natural flowers, following the lead of Moravian practice and of flower painting, rather than that of decorative design.
I never took a walk without him and two of my body-guard, in order to defend myself against the attacks of a few young men who had a spite against me because they fancied, not without some reason, that my needlewomen, their mistresses, had left them on my account.
The descent to these is a gradual one, and most often the women who are found in them have known more than one occupation, and have been, in the beginning at least, needlewomen of greater or less degree of skill.
"I remember," said I, "that the head of the most celebrated dressmaking establishment in New York, in reply to the appeals of the needlewomen of the city for sympathy and wages, came out with published statements to this effect: that the difficulty lay, not in unwillingness of employers to pay what work was worth, but in finding any work worth paying for; that she had many applicants, but among them few who could be of real use to her; that she, in common with everybody in this country who has any kind of serious responsibilities to carry, was continually embarrassed for want of skilled work-people who could take and go on with the labor of her various departments without her constant supervision; that, out of a hundred girls, there would not be more than five to whom she could give a dress to be made and dismiss it from her mind as something certain to be properly done.
"How very industrious!" said Zoe. "I have brought my sister, Mrs. Leland, to see what competent needlewomen you are." "They are that indeed," Elsie said, examining the work. "I shall be glad to engage you both to sew for me when you are no longer needed here," she added with a kindly glance and smile.
Is it because the materials which are in use are costly, or is it because the needlewomen are better paid, and, wages being higher, dressmakers' charges are also higher in proportion? We do not believe that either of these are the cause; but simply that a larger quantity is required, and that variety has become a "sine-quâ-non."
'I shall write to every one in turn, but it is expensive sending to many at once, says one of the poor needlewomen, whom Mr Sydney Herbert's Female Emigration Fund has enabled to obtain a comfortable home at Adelaide. Well might she complain of the expense. When at home, she could send a letter to the most distant corner of the United Kingdom for a penny.
The border marked D in sampler consists merely of two rows of slanting buttonhole-stitch worked one into the other. Needlewomen have wilful ways of making what should be upright stitches slant awkwardly in all manner of ways, with the result that they look as if they had been pulled out of the straight.
During the last few days before the ceremony she understood for the first time that it was inevitable. But time it was now three months since the needlewomen were set at the trousseau and her unconscious acceptance of the horrid fact had trimmed her spirit to philosophy, altered the habit of her mind. She saw her mother radiant, received the personal congratulations of every family on the Island.
Imaginary needlewomen, who demand considerable wages, and have a deepish appetite for beer and viands, I hear of everywhere; but their sewing proves too often a distracted puckering and botching; not sewing, only the fallacious hope of it, a fond imagination of the mind.
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