“Oh! see—see what mamma has been making! Clever mamma!” she cried, clapping her hands, and jumping for joy.
“What lovely little models!” exclaimed Lucius. “Mother, it is you who have cut us all out.”
“You have done what none of us could have done,” said Agnes.
“And so quietly too,” observed Dora.
“There is nothing wanting now!” cried Amy, putting her arm fondly around the parent who had so kindly entered into the little pleasures of her children.
“I thought that one thing more was wanting,” said Mrs. Temple. The lady seated herself beside the table, and took off the cover of a little pasteboard box which she held in her hand. The children looked on with mingled curiosity and pleasure as their mother carefully drew out from it a beautiful little figure about two inches long, exquisitely dressed in miniature garments, representing those which were worn by the high-priest of Israel. To imitate these garments in a size so small, had taxed the utmost skill of the ingenious and neat-fingered lady.
I need not set down all the exclamations of wonder and pleasure which were uttered by the younger Temples. If their mother’s great object had been to gratify her children, that object was certainly attained.
“The dress which I have tried to imitate,” said the lady, “is that in which the high-priest appeared on solemn occasions. The Day of Atonement was, however, an exception; on that most solemn day in the year, when the high-priest ventured into the Holy of holies, he did so in simple garments of pure white linen.”
The mother then showed and explained to her family the different articles of dress on her curious model. The under-tunic, or shirt, of linen, and above it the mantle of sky-blue color, having at the bottom an ornamental border or fringe.
“This fringe, which, as you see, I have cut out in the form of tiny pomegranates, ought to be interspersed with bells of gold,” said Mrs. Temple; “but my fingers could not succeed in making anything so very minute.”