"Perhaps she didn't. Perhaps somebody cheated her."
"No; she told me her mother gave her this, and that she had had it from her mother and grandmother—and so forth."
"Then I fear your friend knew of the fraud,—though perhaps her mother gave it to her as it is now."
"Can you judge if the stitches were picked out recently?"
"I should say very recently. The canvas is faded, of course, but, as you see, the threads beneath where the missing stitches were is quite a shade lighter. Had the picking been done years ago, the canvas would have assumed a uniform tinge,—or nearly so."
"Of course it would,—I can see that for myself. Oh, dear!—Well, Mr.
Greatorex, don't say anything about this, will you?"
"Certainly not. But that's a good sampler, as it stands,—I mean as a specimen of 1836 work."
"Yes, I know it is. And yet, oughtn't the stitches to be put back?"
"Probably not,—for they could not be matched exactly—"
"But if it remains like this, everybody will think it two hundred years older than it really is."