I became more attached to her than
ever.
What a foolish dread it is,--showing unripeness rather than
youth,--the dread of growing old! For how can a life be
beautified more than by its beautiful years? A living, loving,
growing spirit can never be old. Emerson says:
"Spring still makes spring in the mind,
When sixty years are told; "
and some of us are thankful to have lived long enough to bear
witness with him to that truth.
The few others who measured cloth with us were nice, bright
girls, and some of them remarkably pretty. Our work and the room
itself were so clean that in summer we could wear fresh muslin
dresses, sometimes white ones, without fear of soiling them.
This slight difference of apparel and our fewer work-hours seemed
to give us a slight advantage over the toilers in the mills
opposite, and we occasionally heard ourselves spoken of as "the
cloth-room aristocracy." But that was only in fun. Most of us had
served an apprenticeship in the mills, and many of our best
friends were still there, preferring their work because it
brought them more money than we could earn.
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