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Such as it is, only an artist could have designed that border-work, and any neat-handed woman could have embroidered it. Think again of the delicate work in white on white, too familiar to need illustration, which makes no loud claim to be art, but is content to be beautiful! Is that to be a thing altogether of the past now that we have Art Needlework? Art needlework!
Beds, tables and chairs covered the long bench, and round it sat the neat-handed little maidens gluing, tacking and trimming, while they sang and chatted at their work as busy and happy as a hive of bees.
Mr Tippet, who had been smiling cherubically, and nodding approval, said: "I knew it was impossible, my lad, when I gave it to you, and I now know that you are both neat-handed and persevering; so, if you choose, I'll engage you on the spot to come on trial for a week. After that we will settle the remuneration.
Portions of the vine are cut into foot lengths; the outer layer of bark is removed and rejected, the middle layer alone being preserved. This is carefully scraped off and made up into shapely little piles on fresh green leaves. One might imagine that a black boy preparing the deadly "Koie-yan" was really playing at chemist's shop with neat-handed scrupulousness.
Was he to be a shepherd like his father and his uncle, or was he to be a farm-labourer, or put apprentice to a trade? There was not much choice; but at length it was determined to bind him to a stonemason. In Eskdale that trade was for the most part confined to the building of drystone walls, and there was very little more art employed in it than an ordinarily neat-handed labourer could manage.
"How nice, aunt Polly!" said Nellie, the neat-handed, carefully lifting up the album out of Sarah's way so that she might spread the cloth. "I declare I never thought once of looking out of the window to see if it were still wet. Did you, Bob?" "No," he answered, "I was too busy helping you, Nell."
Though no special training had been hers, none of the domestic arts were unknown to her. She acquired them with ease and practised them with the air of a dignified princess and neat-handed facility. While the other children of the house stewed over lessons and rebelled against essential tasks, to Soosie everything seemed to make for holiday.
Here, in the years gone by, did Private Ortheris establish his depot and menagerie for such possessions, dead and living, as could not safely be introduced to the barrack-room. Here were gathered Houdin pullets, and fox-terriers of undoubted pedigree and more than doubtful ownership, for Ortheris was an inveterate poacher and preeminent among a regiment of neat-handed dog-stealers.
A detachment of half-grown girls was drawn up behind grandma, as waiters; Sylvia insisted on being one of them, and proved herself a neat-handed Phillis, though for a time slightly bewildered by the gastronomic performances she beheld.
Having seen her guest stationed in the seat of honour opposite her father, Lucy withdrew for a few moments, and, when she reappeared, was followed by a neat-handed sort of Phillis for a country-maiden, bearing such kind of "savoury messes" as the house might be supposed to afford. "At all events, mine host," said Clarence, "you did not desert the flesh-pots of Egypt when you forsook its tents."
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