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"It is sad, however, that you should be brought up in ignorance of the most ordinary branches of education; had you known something of history and grammar you might, by degrees, have relinquished your lace-mending drudgery, and risen in the world." "It is what I mean to do." "How? By a knowledge of English alone?
"How do you prove it, mademoiselle?" An odd question, and bluntly put; it excited a second smile. "Why, monsieur, I am not inattentive am I? I learn my lessons well " "Oh, a child can do that! and what more do you do?" "What more can I do?" "Oh, certainly, not much; but you are a teacher, are you not, as well as a pupil?" "Yes." "You teach lace-mending?" "Yes."
"Monsieur Creemsvort," said she, in a whisper: for when the schoolrooms were silent, the directress always moved with velvet tread, and spoke in the most subdued key, enforcing order and stillness fully as much by example as precept: "Monsieur Creemsvort, that young person, who has just entered, wishes to have the advantage of taking lessons with you in English; she is not a pupil of the house; she is, indeed, in one sense, a teacher, for she gives instruction in lace-mending, and in little varieties of ornamental needle-work.
Monsieur le Docteur S , our family physician, is also physician of the convent. "You will see nobody," he said, remarking my sentimental curiosity concerning cloistered nuns, "you will see nobody but a lot of lace-mending and stocking-knitting old maids who failed to get husbands."
"I've taught myself lace-mending just by main strength and awkwardness," she observed, fitting a hoop over a torn place, "and it's not because I have any natural knack, either. If there's anything I hate to do, it's to sew. But these curtains do go to pieces so. I wash them myself, to be careful, but they are so fine.
"Monsieur, I begged my aunt to have me taught lace-mending soon after we came to Brussels, because I knew it was a METIER, a trade which was easily learnt, and by which I could earn some money very soon. I learnt it in a few days, and I quickly got work, for all the Brussels ladies have old lace very precious which must be mended all the times it is washed.
Father did a little business in the village, and for some of the big houses round about, not much, of course but I was always handy with my needle, and by degrees I got a number of customers for lace-mending and getting up ladies' fine lawn and muslin gowns. So between us we made quite enough to live on till he died." Her voice sank and she paused then she added "I've lived alone here ever since."
It's easy to be glad when everything is gladness, but when you've only got just a tiny bit of joy in a whole wilderness of trouble, then we can't be too grateful for that tiny bit of joy. At least, so I take it." "Where did you learn your philosophy, Mary?" he asked, half whimsically "I mean, who taught you to think?" She paused in her lace-mending, needle in hand. "Who taught me to think!
I have gone through a course of each study." "Bravo! but how did you manage it, since your aunt could not afford lo send you to school?" "By lace-mending; by the thing monsieur despises so much." "Truly! And now, mademoiselle, it will be a good exercise for you to explain to me in English how such a result was produced by such means."
Many a time in these lovely, fresh and sunny April days Angus Reay would persuade Mary away from her lace-mending to take long walks with him across the downs, or through the woods and on each occasion when they started on these rambles together, David Helmsley would sit and watch for their return in a curious sort of timorous suspense wondering, hoping, and fearing, eager for the moment when Angus should speak his mind to the woman he loved, and yet always afraid lest that woman should, out of some super-sensitive feeling, put aside and reject that love, even though she might long to accept it.
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