CONCERNING THE BUTTONS OF THE RAMILLIE COAT
"Now pray remark, sir," said the Lady Elizabeth Carlyon, seating herself in a shady arbour and taking up her needle and thread, "a woman, instead of sucking her thread and rubbing it into a black spike and cursing, threads her needle—so! Thereafter she takes the object to be sewed and holds it—no, she can't, sir, while you sit so much afar, prithee come closer to her—there! Yet no—'twill never do—she'll be apt to prick you sitting thus——"
"If I took off my coat, madam——"
"'Twould be monstrous indecorous, sir! No, you must kneel down—here at my feet!"
"But—madam——"
"To your knees, sir, or I'll prick you vilely! She now takes the article to be sewed and—pray why keep at such a distance? She cannot sew gracefully while you pull one way and she another! She then fits on her thimble, poises needle and—sews!" The which my lady forthwith proceeded to do making wondrous pretty play with white hand and delicate wrist the while.
And when she had sewn in silence for perhaps one half-minute she fell to converse thus:
"Indeed you look vastly appealing on your knees, sir. Pray have you knelt to many lovely ladies?"
"Never in my life!" he answered fervently.
"And yet you kneel with infinite grace—'tis quite affecting, how doth it feel to crouch thus humbly before the sex?"