"Why," exclaimed Aunt Nancy, "I've seen mittens knit with a hook something like that. Not open work and fancy, but all tight and out of good stout yarn. They're very lasting."
"I do believe they're like what Uncle David makes," said John. "Don't you remember, he used to give us a pair now and then?"
"Well, I declare, there's nothing new under the sun!" laughed Aunt Patience.
Hanny was quite sure there could not be any connection between her delicate lace and stout yarn mittens, and she meant to ask Uncle David the next time they made a visit. Both ladies praised her a good deal, especially when they heard of the shirts she had been making with Margaret.
"It used to be a great thing," said Aunt Patience. "When I was six years old I had knit a pair of stockings by myself, and when I was eight I had made my father a shirt. All the gussets were stitched, just as you do a bosom. My, what a sight of fine work there was then!"
"I'll tell you something I read the other day in a queer old book I picked up down at the office," began Ben. "When little Prince Edward was two years old, the Princess Elizabeth who was afterward queen made him a shirt or smock, as it was called, with drawn work and embroidery. And she was only six."
"Children have more lessons to study now," said Mrs. Underhill, half in apology. "And Hanny has done some drawn work for me, and embroidered some aprons."
"And Queen Elizabeth spent enough time later on with gay gallants," remarked Aunt Nancy. "So I do not know as her early industry held out."
"I'd rather have had her splendid reign than to have made shirts for an army," declared Ben.
"Well, we all have our duties in this world," sighed Aunt Patience. "I learned to make shirts, but I never had a husband or boys to make them for."