“Well, there is no use in regretting it now—or rather—I hope it will do you good. I thought you loved your mamma.”
“Oh, Miss Lane!”
“Well, my dear, you do not seem to care for anything she has given you. I should think you would cherish everything she has touched. It shocks me to think of your allowing her gifts to lie about the floor.”
Jennie’s tears flowed fast as they walked up stairs together.
“This is the way I keep my drawers,” said Miss Lane, opening one after another, and exhibiting piles of neatly folded handkerchiefs, snowy collars and cuffs, stockings rolled up compactly, and dainty garments with sprigs of lavender between.
“Oh, how beautiful! It is a pleasure to look at them. Mine are so different,” cried Jennie, as she looked.
“Here is my work-basket. Here are the cases for my thimble, for my spools, and for my scissors. Here is my needle-book, too, and in this bag are silks wound upon ivory winders. I keep this long silk bag with the shallow basket in the bottom for my knitting, and I must tell you that I never lose anything. Shall we go now into your room awhile and make an examination?”
“I am ashamed that you should see my things. I always stuff them in. It takes so long to put them away particularly.”
“We agreed a little while ago that time was saved by being careful, you know. I think you must confess that most of your morning has been wasted in hunting what would not have taken you twenty minutes to put away properly.”
In the top drawer of Jennie’s bureau were a comb and brush, one shoe and a slipper, a Prayer-book, several pairs of gloves, a heap of stockings, one dumb-bell, a pair of graces, and a half eaten apple. In the second, among a pile of incongruous articles, was an overturned work-basket, with all the silks and cotton in a snarl, and, one by one, Miss Lane placed various pieces of unfinished work on a chair by her side. The first was a slipper partly embroidered.