Miss Brook wheeled swiftly about. What Chidly discovered admirable was always doubly so to his sister.
“The chrysanthemum tapestry! The dream embodied at last!”
Just as her children wished, there hung upon the wall beside the wide hearthplace, “where somebody could appreciate it,” the vision Mrs. Beckwith had seen in Mr. Brook’s basket of chrysanthemums so long ago.
“Until to-day, a secret even from us, for whom she wrought it all!” cried Isabelle, eagerly. “Isn’t it beautiful? Isn’t it perfect?”
Mr. Dolloway’s opinion had not yet been called for; but he was “the privileged member” everywhere, and he coolly left the table, putting on his horn-bowed spectacles as he did so. “Well, Master, I thought I was right, even without my glasses! But I will say them is the best picters you an’ Miss Brook has ever had took! Who done ’em?”
“Who could do them, who could use a needle so exquisitely, who in this world, but our own blessed little mother?” answered Bonny, enthusiastically.
“The needle! you don’t tell me them faces is sewed?”
“Certainly. Every particle of the work is done with a needle,—the needle of a genius! her children think.”
“An’ I should think they might!” returned the old man, fixing his eyes solemnly upon Mrs. Beckwith, who had always had his highest veneration, but who now seemed to have been suddenly lifted off from the common earth and placed upon a pedestal; and so overwhelmed in thought was he that he began to eat his dinner without a word, even one “reminiscence” of his beloved “California.”
“Well, my dears, are you all satisfied, quite satisfied, with our experiment?” asked Mr. Brook, as they finally grouped about the fireplace, preparatory to saying good-night. “Three years must have proved the wisdom of it, seems to me.”