"And it was by this very pattern, Caroline, I made the dozen I sent Mary
Caroline for you. See the little slips fold over and hold up the
petticoats," and Mrs. Buchanan held up a tiny garment for Caroline Darrah
to admire. They sat by the sunny window in her living-room and both were
sewing on dainty cambric and lace. Caroline Darrah's head bent over the
piece of ruffling in her hand with flower-like grace and the long lines
from her throat suggested decidedly a very lovely Preraphaelite angel.
Her needle moved slowly and unaccustomedly but she had the air of doing
the hemming bravely if fearfully.
"Isn't it darling?" she said as she raised her head for a half-second,
then immediately dropped her eyes and went on printing her stitches
carefully. "What else was in that box, I feel I need to know?" she asked.
"Let me see! The dozen little shirts, they were made out of some of
my own trousseau things because of a scarcity of linen in those days,
and two little embroidered caps and a blue cashmere sack and a set of
crocheted socks and--and the major sent brandy, he always does. I
have the letter she wrote me about it all. And to think she had to
leave--" Mrs. Matilda's eyes misted as she paused to thread her needle.
"She didn't realize--that, and think of what she felt when she opened the
box," said Caroline as she raised her eyes that smiled through a
threatened shower. "Oh, I mustn't let the tears fall on Little Sister's
ruffle!" she added quickly as she took up her work.
"That reminds me of an accident to the shirts I made for Phoebe. They
were being bleached in the sun when a calf took a fancy to them and
chewed two of them entirely up before we discovered him. I was so
provoked, for I had no more linen as fine as I wanted."
"Of course the calf ate up my shirts," came in Phoebe's laughing voice
from the doorway where she had been standing unobserved for several
minutes, watching Mrs. Buchanan and Caroline. "Something is always
chewing at my affairs but Mrs. Matilda shoos them away for me sometimes
still--even _calves_ when it is positively necessary. How very
industrious you do look! At times even I sigh for a needle, though I
wouldn't know what to do with it. There seems to be something in a
woman's soul that nothing but a needle satisfies; morbid craving, that!"
"Phoebe, I want to make something for you. I feel I must as soon as these
petticoats for Little Sister are done. What shall it be?" and Caroline
Darrah beamed upon Phoebe with the warmest of inter-woman glances. The
affection for Phoebe which had possessed the heart of Caroline Darrah had
deepened daily and to its demands, Phoebe, for her, had been most
unusually responsive.