Chapter Eight.
Kettles Again.
Pennie sat one afternoon sewing wearily a way at a long seam. Sometimes she looked at the clock, sometimes out of the window, and sometimes dropped her work into her lap, until Miss Unity gave a grave look, and then she took it up and plodded on again.
For Miss Unity had discovered another point in which Pennie needed improvement. Her sewing was disgraceful! Now was the moment to take it in hand, for she had no lessons to learn and a great deal of spare time which could not be better employed; so it was arranged that one hour should be spent in “plain needlework” every afternoon.
“Every gentlewoman, my dear, should be apt at her needle,” said Miss Unity with quiet firmness. “It is a branch of education as important in its way as any other, and I should grieve if you were to fail in it.”
“But it does make me ache all over so,” said poor Pennie.
“My dear Pennie, that must be fancy. Surely it is much more fatiguing to sit stooping over your writing so long, yet I never hear you complain.”
“Well, but I like it, you see,” answered Pennie, “so I suppose that’s why I don’t ache.”