“I wish I could work as fast as she cuts,” she thought to herself, “they’d be ready in no time.”
“You’ll no doubt be present at the Institute on Friday, Miss,” resumed Mrs Bolton after the flannel was disposed of. “I’m told the dissolving views will be something quite out of the common. This is a useful width in tape.”
“I will take two pieces of the narrow, thank you,” said Miss Unity, “and that will be all. Yes, I think perhaps I may go.”
“What did she mean by dissolving views?” asked Pennie on the way home.
“They are coloured pictures, my dear;” said her godmother after some consideration, “which fade imperceptibly one into the other.”
“Are they like a magic lantern?” continued Pennie. “What are the pictures about?”
“Various subjects,” answered Miss Unity; “but these will represent scenes from the Karawayo Islands. There is to be a missionary address.”
“Haven’t we done a lot this afternoon?” said Pennie, as they turned into the Close. “Lots we never meant to do.”
It was true indeed as far as Miss Unity was concerned; she had seldom spent such an afternoon in her life. She had been taken out for a walk in the mud, with rain threatening; she had talked in the open High Street, under the very eye of the dean, with a little vagrant out of Anchor and Hope Alley; she had of her own accord, unadvised and unassisted, formed an original plan, and not only formed it, but taken the first step towards carrying it out. Miss Unity hardly knew herself and felt quite uncertain what she might do next, and down what unknown paths she might find herself hurrying. In spite, however, of some fatigue and a sense of confusion in the head, she sat down to tea in a cheerful and even triumphant spirit.
Pennie, too, had a great deal to think over after she had written to Nancy, and made a careful entry in her diary. It had been such a nice afternoon, and it came just when she had been feeling a little discontented and tired of Nearminster. There were the dissolving views, too.