Nicole

“She picked up the wide sleeve and studied the beading: imitation pearls and small rhinestones interspersed with a few of glistening colors: watery blue and aqua, palest rose and coral.”
― Diane C. McPhail, The Seamstress of New Orleans

“Beauty had emerged from her mother’s fingertips, her nimble use of needle and bright-colored thread. Beauty had lain in what sort of stitch could marry two scraps on a quilt and what other stitch mirrored a rose or a thorn or the seeded center of a sunflower.”
― Diane C. McPhail, The Seamstress of New Orleans

“If nothing else, Alice, you will have sight of one of the grandest buildings in the city, one of the grandest ever built, in fact. That florid thing cost three hundred eighty thousand dollars to erect! It is as ornate as a cathedral. But, oh so mixed up. A bit of everything thrown in---Second Empire, Renaissance, Italian, with Corinthian columns, no less. Gold ceiling medallions, frescoes, murals, sculptures--- even a fountain, where the futures are sold. Well, not in the fountain.” Constance laughed uncertainly. “And an ornate steam elevator… Well, just don’t bid on the cotton futures.”
― Diane C. McPhail, The Seamstress of New Orleans

“Her amazement was compounded as she approached the primary entrance, two stories high. At its apex were the extraordinary sculptures of the goddesses of industry and agriculture, who stood amid the draped folds of their gowns, each flanked by the symbols of her domain. Alice, unlike her uneducated brothers, had grown up with the luxury of reading with her mother. She recognized Ceres instantly, sheaves of grain on her left, her right hand atop an abundant cornucopia. This was the mother who had sacrificed all else to bring her missing daughter home. She thought about how her own mother had sacrificed to send Alice out into what she had envisioned as a better life.”
― Diane C. McPhail, The Seamstress of New Orleans