But high premiums were
asked at all; poor man! he might have known that without giving up a
day's work to ascertain the fact. He would have been indignant,
indeed, had he known that if Mary had accompanied him, the case
might have been rather different, as her beauty would have made her
desirable as a show-woman. Then he tried second-rate places; at all
the payment of a sum of money was necessary, and money he had none.
Disheartened and angry, he went home at night, declaring it was time
lost; that dressmaking was at all events a troublesome business, and
not worth learning. Mary saw that the grapes were sour, and the
next day she set out herself, as her father could not afford to lose
another day's work; and before night (as yesterday's experience had
considerably lowered her ideas) she had engaged herself as
apprentice (so called, though there were no deeds or indentures to
the bond) to a certain Miss Simmonds, milliner and dressmaker, in a
respectable little street leading off Ardwick Green, where her
business was duly announced in gold letters on a black ground,
enclosed in a bird's-eye maple frame, and stuck in the front-parlour
window; where the workwomen were called "her young ladies"; and
where Mary was to work for two years without any remuneration, on
consideration of being taught the business; and where afterwards she
was to dine and have tea, with a small quarterly salary (paid
quarterly because so much more genteel than by the week), a VERY
small one, divisible into a minute weekly pittance.
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