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It was one of the heaviest crosses of Mary's girlish days that she and Anna were not permitted to exercise their clever fingers, and indulge their taste for the beautiful, in their own dress. But they found a faint vicarious pleasure in making pretty summer gowns, and embroidering elaborate muslin collars for a girl-friend who was allowed to wear fashionable clothes, and even to go to balls.
A girl, apparently about thirteen years of age, was seated by the fire, busily embroidering a lamp-mat; another, some six years younger, was dressing a doll; while an infant, five or six months old, crawled about the carpet, eagerly picking up pins, needles, and every other objectionable article his little purple fingers could grasp. "Take him, Beulah," said the mother.
That fine afternoon April budding into May this lady listened to Ingram in the garden. Of all sounds in the world the sweetest music for her ear was made by a man's voice embroidering the theme "You are lovely, you are cruel, I die." Ingram's descant on the golden phrase was querulous, after his manner. He took his lover's smarts, as one must suppose them, hardly.
He found the English travellers established among the pines by the lake-side, Philip half asleep in a hammock strung between two pines, while Delaine was reading to Elizabeth from an article in an archæological review on "Some Fresh Light on the Cippus of Palestrina." Lady Merton was embroidering; it seemed to Anderson that she was tired or depressed.
The interest and curiosity of the queen were now excited more than ever, and she determined that the mystery should be solved. So she followed the passage, and was finally led by it to a place beyond the wall of the grounds, where there was a house in a very secluded spot surrounded by thickets. Here the queen found Rosamond sitting in a bower, and engaged in embroidering.
At bed-time there was always her shadow-chum to share the recollections of the day. One of her letters to Joyce gave a description of the state of resignation to which she finally attained. "Think of it!" she wrote. "Me with my Puritan conscience and big bump of order, and my r.m. calmly embroidering this Sabbath afternoon! Her dressing table, her bed and the chairs look like rubbish heaps.
Marchmont, gushingly, "you will be such company for Miranda while I am embroidering; the sweet child was saying she should so much like to go to you for confession."
She used to come, uninvited but serene, into her prospective mother-in-law's room at night, and artlessly confide in her, while she braided the masses of her glorious hair. She showed Mrs. Phelps the "swell" pillow she was embroidering to represent an Indian's head, and which she intended to finish with real beads and real feathers.
I smiled at her confusion and complimented her on the banner she was embroidering from a coloured plate. Old Hawberk sat riveting the worn greaves of some ancient suit of armour, and the ting! ting! ting! of his little hammer sounded pleasantly in the quaint shop. Presently he dropped his hammer, and fussed about for a moment with a tiny wrench.
Run quickly and tell her the tidings; and see to it that she puts on her most costly clothes. Tell her that if she will also put on the ornaments Leif has given her, I will give her leave to stop embroidering for the day." Editha observed to herself, as she tripped away, that undoubtedly her mistress had already done that without waiting for permission.
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