more. Viéra Pavlovna made acquaintance with these chosen girls; she became very well acquainted with them before she agreed to accept them; that was natural. It shows that she is a woman of sound common sense, and that's all. There is nothing to deliberate about; there is nothing to distrust.
Thus they worked a month, receiving in due time the wages which had been agreed upon. Viéra Pavlovna was constantly at the shop, and they learned to look upon her as an economical, careful, and reasonable woman, with unusual consideration for them, and thus she won their full confidence. The was nothing extraordinary about that either, nor was anything noticeable except that the mistress was a good mistress, in whose hands the business would succeed; she knows how to manage.
But at the end of a month Viéra Pavlovna came into the shop one day with some kind of an account-book; she asked her seamstresses to stop work, and listen to what she had to say.
She began to speak, in very simple language, things which were comprehensible, very comprehensible, but which her seamstresses had never heard before, either from her or from anybody else.
"Now that we know each other well," she began, "I can say of you that you are good workers and good girls. And you will not say that I am a fool. Consequently I can speak with you frankly about my ideas. If you should find anything strange in them, you will think carefully about them, and not insist that my ideas are foolish, because you know that I am not a foolish woman. This is the plan that I propose:—
"Good people say that it is possible to establish sewing shops where seamstresses might work to much greater profit to themselves than in those shops that we know about. And so I wanted to make an experiment. Judging by the first month, it appears that it can be done. You have been receiving your wages regularly, and now I want to tell you how much over and above your wages and all other expenses remain in my hands as clear profit."
Viéra Pavlovna read over to them the debit and credit account for the month. In the expense account were reckoned, besides the wages paid, all other expenses,—the rent of the shop, light, even down to Viéra Pavlovna's
