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Updated: June 29, 2025
There was the great dining-table, heavy and square; the range of chairs, straight and square; the work-boxes, useful and square; the colouring of walls, and carpet, and curtains, all of the coldest description; everything was handsome, and everything was ugly. Mrs Bradshaw was asleep in her easy-chair when they came in.
Among the various customs which had very naturally sprung up was one especially useful and interesting to 'the girls', as the young women liked to be called. It all grew out of the old sewing hour still kept up by the three sisters long after the little work-boxes had expanded into big baskets full of household mending.
Such a box, all smelling of choice Indian wood; the very shavings that stuffed it were delightful! And what an unpacking! It was like nothing but the Indian stall at the Baker Street Bazaar! There were two beautiful large ivory work-boxes, inlaid with stripes and circles of tiny mosaic; and there were even more delicious little boxes of soft fragrant sandal wood, and a set of chessmen in ivory.
I had dug little more than a foot when my spade struck upon some hard substance, and in a few more moments I had uncovered and exhumed a small box, which, on examination, proved to be one of those pretty old-fashioned Chippendale work-boxes used by our grandmothers to keep their thimbles and needles in, their reels of cotton and skeins of silk.
Doubtless she had now work-boxes grander both in appearance and size; but, nevertheless, whether from habit or from choice, her custom was, in her daily needlework, to use this old friend. Often and often had Charley played with it many wicked pranks. Once, while Katie had as yet no pretension to be grown up, he had put a snail into it, and had incurred her severe displeasure.
On a large centre table a number of artistic objects were lying together in a promiscuous jumble: Japanese knick-knacks; an ivory card-case that had lost its cover, and a broken- bladed paper-knife; glove and collar and work-boxes of sandal-wood, mother-of-pearl, and papier-mache, with broken hinges; faded fans and chipped paper-weights; gorgeous picture-books with loosened covers, and a magnificent portrait-album which had been deflowered and had nothing left in it but the old and ugly, the commonplace middle-aged, and the vapid young; with many other things besides, all more or less defective.
A black and white spaniel, belonging to a friend of mine, seemed to understand everything said to him, and if his master whispered in his ear, "Find something for your master," every loose article which he could carry was sure to be laid at his master's feet, and frequently the ladies of the family were obliged to lock their work-boxes, to prevent their contents from being carried off by Dash.
Then, there were little work-boxes with gold thimbles and bodkins, and scissors in crimson velvet cases, and snakes that squirmed so naturally as to make you hop up on the table to get out of the way, and little innocent looking boxes containing a little spry mouse, that jumped into your face as soon as you raised the lid, and music boxes to place under your pillows when you had drank too strong a cup of green tea, and vinaigrettes that you could hold to your nose to keep you from fainting when you saw a dandy.
No article, however unpromising its quality, provided only it be portable, can with safety be left unguarded in any apartment accessible to them. The contents of ladies' work-boxes, kid gloves, and pocket handkerchiefs vanish instantly if exposed near a window or open door.
The picture I had before me, of the beautiful little treasure of my heart, sobbing and crying all night of her being alone, frightened, and wretched, then of her having so piteously begged and prayed that stony-hearted woman to forgive her of her having vainly offered her those kisses, work-boxes, and trinkets of her being in such grievous distress, and all for me very much impaired the little dignity I had been able to muster.
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