I almost lost my senses among the ribbons, and flew up and down among the flounces, and went mad amongst the basques.

I move round as gay as when I was young; and modern scissors, with their stumpy ends, and loose pivots, and weak blades, and glaring bows, and course shanks, are stupid beside an old family piece like me.

You would be surprised how spry I am flying around the sewing-room, cutting corsage into heart-shape, and slitting a place for button holes, and making double-breasted jackets, and hollowing scallops, and putting the last touches on velvet arabesques and Worth overskirts.

I feel almost as well at eighty years of age as at ten, and I lie down to sleep at night amid all the fineries of the wardrobe, on olive-green cashmere, and beside pannier puffs, and pillowed on feathers of ostrich.
Oh! what a gay life the scissors live! I may lie on gayest lady's lap, and little children like me better than almost anything else to play with.

The trembling octogenarian takes me by the hand, and the rollicking four-year-old puts on me his dimpled fingers.