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Updated: June 18, 2025
There were shelves suspended to the wall by blue ribbons, and filled with small books neatly bound; there were flower-pots in all the window-sills; there was a small cottage piano; the walls were graced partly with engraved portraits of county magnates and prize oxen; partly with samplers in worsted-work, comprising verses of moral character and the names and birthdays of the farmer's grandmother, mother, wife, and daughters.
We thought of Shirley's old hall growing sadly quiet and chill as it lost the merry chatter about the "tabull-bord"; as saddles and bridles jingled there for the last time on their way to some far outbuilding; as the gentlewomen carried their needlework away, and the little maids followed with their samplers. At last, all the old life was gone.
Some of these rooms contained their time-honored furniture, all in the best possible repair, heavy, dark, polished; beds that had been marriage beds and dying beds over and over again; chairs with carved backs; and all manner of old world curiosities; family pictures, and samplers, and embroidery; fragments of tapestry; an inlaid floor; everything having a story to it, though, to say the truth, the possessor of these curiosities made but a bungling piece of work in telling the legends connected with them.
"I was too ignorant to know that there were no samplers made at that earlier date, and to tell the truth, I didn't think much about it, I just did it hastily, on a sudden impulse, because I wanted to give Elise something worth-while for her booth at the fair." "And gave me something utterly worthless!" scoffed Elise.
They were fond of poetry, and no doubt some of the earliest poems of young Mr. Tennyson were among their favourites, as well as 'Lycidas' and the songs of the cavaliers. Parthy was a better artist and a cleverer musician than Florence, though she could sing and sketch; but both were good needlewomen, and could make samplers as well as do fine work and embroidery.
To refuse would be ungracious; moreover, she could risk no misinterpretation of her acts, and she accepted. Mrs. Jenney met her on the doorstep, and conducted her into that sanctum reserved for occasions, the parlour, with its Bible, its flat, old-fashioned piano, its samplers, its crayon portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Jenney after their honeymoon; with its aroma that suggested Sundays and best manners.
So, with the General politely expressing that there was no saying what Rockquay owed to the hearty co-operation of such birds of passage as herself and her brothers, she travelled on to the charity stall, which Miss Mohun had quaintly dressed in the likeness of an old-fashioned school, with big alphabet and samplers, flourished copies, and a stuffed figure of a 'cont-rare-y' naughty boy, with a magnificent fool's cap.
The coachman drove off at a great rate; and a few minutes afterwards Tracassier's myrmidons arrived at the school-house. Great was their surprise, when they found only the poor children's little books, unfinished samplers, and half-hemmed handkerchiefs. They ran into the garden to search for the nun.
Pennie looked at this with an almost fearful admiration, for the number of tiny stitches in it were terrible to think of. "I'm glad people don't have to work samplers now," she often said. This was indeed a most wonderful sampler, and it hung against the wall framed and glazed as it well deserved, a lasting example of industry and eyesight.
I hate needlework-i always did." "knitting?" "And that, too." "You might finish your sampler. Only the carna- tions and peacocks want filling in; and then it could be framed and glazed, and hung beside your aunt" ma'am." "Samplers are out of date horribly countrified. No Liddy, I'll read. Bring up some books not new ones. I haven't heart to read anything new."
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