“Oh!” she exclaimed, “isn’t that lovely! You have done some work all by yourself.”
“Yes,” said Mary Frances, “I wanted to surprise you, but somehow it seems to me that the rows I have just knitted do not look quite so even as those I did when I was with you.”
“Let me look at them more closely,” said the fairy, and when Mary Frances laid her work on the table she bent close over it.
“Oh, my dear!” she said in her tiny voice. “Oh, my dear, you have dropped some stitches! See?” and she pointed to the loose threads.
Mary Frances picked up her work and stretched these places open. The stitches ripped apart.
“My, I am so disappointed!” she exclaimed. “What shall I do?”
“You must pull out your needle and rip out all your stitches back to the beginning of the row where you see your first mistake,” said the fairy.
Try as she would, Mary Frances couldn’t keep the tears from coming to her eyes as she ripped out the stitches which she had made with so much pleasure.
