“Yes, very much: it gives me such a nice chance to work; I have nobody to interrupt me. I can do a great deal on a rainy day.”

“But I have no work, mother.”

“Ah, that is just the trouble: time lies heavy on idle hands; suppose you wind these skeins of silk into nice little balls for my work-basket?”

“So I will; won’t you talk to me while I am doing it? tell me something about yourself, when you was a little girl—little like me; tell me the very first thing you can ever remember when you was a tiny little girl.”

“Bless me, that was so long ago that you will have to give me time to think. Can you keep your chattering tongue still five minutes, while I do it?”

Susy nodded her head, and fixed her eye very resolutely on a nail in the wall.

A long pause.

“Hum—hum,” muttered Susy pointing to her lips, as her mamma moved in her chair.

“Yes, you can speak now.”

“Have you thought of it, mother?”