"Not as a rule, my dear. I trust when I am forty I shall not want a crutch. I shall be forty in two years, and that by some people is considered young."
"Then I suppose it is mending those horrid stockings that makes you so old."
"Mending stockings doesn't help to keep you young, certainly."
"Shall I help you? I used to cobble for old nurse when I was at home."
"But I shouldn't like you to cobble these."
"Oh, I can darn, you know."
"Then do, Kathleen. I should take it very kindly if you would. Here is worsted, and here is a needle. Will you sit by me and tell me about your home?"
Kathleen certainly would not have believed her own ears had she been told an hour ago that she would end her first fit of desperate naughtiness by darning stockings for the Tennant boys. She did not darn well; but then, Mrs. Tennant was not particular. She certainly—although she said she would not—did cobble these stockings to an extraordinary extent; but her work and the chat with
Mrs. Tennant did her good, and she went upstairs to dress for supper in a happier frame of mind.
"I will stay here for a little," she said finally to Mrs. Tennant, "because I think it will help you. You look so terribly tired; and I don't think you ought to have this horrible work to do. I'd like to do it for you, but I don't suppose I shall have time. I will stay for a bit and see what I can make of the foundation girls."