The next day, the consequences of our prior evening together were all too apparent. When I stood, my legs trembled with weariness. But when I sat, every position that I found was painful. It took a good deal of concentration for me to maintain my composure with my customers. The morning started slow, and I sold a fair few bonnets, so I thought that I might be able to last into the hour when I closed the shop for my lunch. But just as I was resolving to push through my discomfort, I heard a pair of clients whom I had never met discussing several of the best bonnets I had for sale.

It was quickly apparent that one of these customers did not want to be in my shop at all.

“But I like the ones at Claude’s much better, grandmama,” the young lady was saying, fingering the outrageous maroon gown she was wearing as she spoke. “These hats may as well be from your day.”

“That is why I approve of them, my dear,” said the grandmother. “My word, the pieces of frippery that you young ladies want to call hats.”

And she looked at her granddaughter with scorn. I was surprised that she did not say anything about the outrageous pieces of frippery that this particular girl called gowns, for the thing that she was wearing certainly qualified as outrageous.

“I certainly don’t want to call this a hat,” she said, looking at one of the finest green bonnets. I had placed it in full view so that customers might remark upon the expensive velvet.

I moved over toward the customers without speaking to them again, making as if I were about to rearrange a different hat. But the young woman continued on, completely oblivious to my presence.

“I haven’t time for such nonsense, grandmama,” she said. “Indeed, if Withers ever presented me with such a hat, I should be exceedingly angry with her.”

Even through my aggravation, I recognized that the “grandmama” was attempting to control her young charge. With the quickest of glances, she tried a cool reprimand. “Then you would be angry over nothing, my dear. Indeed, do you mean to say that clothing not made to your taste is the worst fate that could possibly befall you?”

“There are worse,” she hissed. “The musicians last night were simply dragging. I could not get them to play anything fast, and the dancing was so tedious that I thought I might fall asleep on my feet.”

The grandmother looked over at one of my less expensive spring bonnets. It was still quite well made, and I knew that she had a good eye.

“Nobody was forcing you to dance, Larissa,” she insisted, still looking carefully at the bonnet.

This elicited some sound closely resembling a yelp. “But I had not danced in a week! I had no possible choice in the matter.”

“God gives each of us free will, my dear. I’m sure that you could have chosen not to dance.”

“Grandmama, did you not hear me?” said the girl, heaving a great sigh. “I simply had to dance, even though it was tedious. We must go somewhere lively tonight, not to the Leons’ at all. Your friends are so dull, all they want to do is talk of books and other nonsense.”

The grandmother’s face tightened, though I had to give a half smile. The Leons seemed like eminently suitable people, and I should have liked nothing better than a free evening in which I could sit in a comfortable home and speak of books and “nonsense” that this Larissa apparently despised.

“Have a look at this bonnet, Larissa,” said the girl’s grandmother.

“I’m quite sure I have never seen anything so ugly in my life,” whined the petulant girl, hardly looking at the gorgeous bonnet that had taken my mother three weeks to create.

This was was the remark that broke my spirit. At once, I went to the back of the shop to consult with my mother before I had a chance to take my best pair of scissors and make a large gash in the impertinent girl’s silly gown.

“I have a sick headache, mama,” I told her, and her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“A headache,” she said, and that was all that she needed to say. My mother never needed very many words to convey to me exactly what she was thinking. And what she was doubtless thinking was that I had always dismissed headaches as the providence of wealthy women. Even when I actually ill, I forced myself to work.

“I’m not saying that I’m going to lie in my bed and carry on all day, mama,” I told her. “I just want a walk. A little bit of air will set me to rights.”

She frowned at me, but made no response. She simply moved to the front of the shop and stood silently while Larissa and her grandmother argued over the merits of white muslin. It seemed that Larissa was looking for something much more exciting.