“I know, Aunt Bab, I know; but I just put Jo’s saddle on the colt and cantered him over here at his best speed, and of course my hair is blown about. Lora, I could shake you, you provoking girl, with your hair like new carded flax, and your fresh kirtle and wimple, and your stitchery in your hand”—
“The sampler is well-nigh done,” interrupted the mother proudly, “and I think she hath done it fairly enough, don’t you, Betty Alden?”
“Certainly I do, auntie, and I know as well as though you said it I shall never be a patch on Lora for delicate needlework; but then there are so many of us, and mother has no time for her needle, and the boys and father do wear out their hosen most unmercifully, and keep me darning or knitting all the time. I’ve a stocking in my pocket here for Jonathan; but first let me have a good view of the sampler, Lora.”
“Wait but till I cut off my silk at the end of ‘name,’” said Lora, busily fastening her thread at the back of the canvas. “There, now I’ve the needle safe! You know you lost one for me last time you were here, and mother and I hunted an hour for it.”
“I know,” replied Betty penitently, “and if you had not found it mother was going to send John and Jo over to the governor to see if he had some in store.”
“He had some direct from Whitechapel by the Lyon,” remarked Barbara, “but the price is advanced to fivepence each, and we must be careful.”
“You see I have still the flourishing at the end to do,” said Lora, handing Betty the frame in which a long and narrow piece of linen was tightly stretched and nearly covered with parallel lines of embroidery done in various colored silks. Near the lower end came a verse, or at least some rhymes running thus:—
“Lorea Standish is my name.
Lord, guide my heart that I may do Thy will;