“No, thank you! I just make up as I go along—”
“Like the wonderful rug weavers of India,” cried Alora. “Do you sing a song as you go and weave the music into your work as they do, Mrs. Markle?”
“Why, yes, sometimes! But please don’t call me Mrs. Markle. I’m not so terribly old and you don’t know how I long to have someone call me by my own name, Hortense.”
“Doesn’t Mr. Markle?”
“He calls me Pet. Awfully silly, but he always has. I think it would be so pleasant if all of you girls would just call me Hortense. Won’t you?” She smiled so brightly on the ring of girls grouped around her that they succumbed to her charms. Even Irene melted a bit and decided that perhaps she did like the little lady a tiny bit after all. Anyone who could put in an invisible patch must be a desirable acquaintance.
“You see it has been many years since I have been with my own people and so few ever call me anything but Mrs. Markle. It is very lonesome to have persons so formal.”
As she talked she had been deftly outlining a rose on the front of the camisole, drawing it with needle and thread with strokes as sure as those of a great flower painter. Then choosing her silk from Irene’s basket she began to embroider. Irene was spellbound in her attention. The first petal took form under the flying fingers as though by magic.
And then the woman sang. It seemed hardly fair that anyone so beautiful and clever as Hortense Markle should also have a voice, but voice she did have of a rich depth that thrilled her audience.
“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a flying: