"'Take a seat, Norah,' said my mistress kindly, 'and go on with the work where I left off.'"
"'I'm glad it's to be sewing, not reading,' thought I. But wasn't I puzzled when not a bit of work could I see, nothing on the table but one old-looking book! I peeped about here and there, without daring to get up from my chair, wondering where the work could be hidden, while my mistress was wondering all the while why I did not begin."
"'What are you waiting for, Norah?' said she."
"'Please, ma'am, I can't find no work, I think it must have dropped under the table?'"
Norah's little story was duly laughed at, especially by Dan, who did not understand the joke, as he knew as little as his sister had done, that a book can be spoken of as "a work."
"Oh and another time I was so stupid!" Norah went on, laughing at the recollection. "I was reading to mistress a large new book, that had a good many pictures in it, when she dropped asleep as she sometimes does."
"When, just waking from her nap, 'Norah,' says she, 'I'd like to look at the plates.'"
"Up jumped I with a 'Yes, ma'am, directly; shall I bring the kitchen plates or the china?'"
Again there was a burst of merriment at the blunder of the little maiden.
"Do you like the reading, Norah?" asked Ned.