"My dear," she said to herself, "I don't want to be hasty in my judgments, but it rather looks as if you had been a careless, selfish goose, doesn't it now?"
She went up to her own room,—the garden seemed too much of an indulgence just now,—and sat down quietly with her work. Sewing was always soothing to Margaret. She was not fond of it; she would have read twelve hours out of the twenty-four, if she had been allowed to choose her own way of life, and have walked or ridden four, and slept six, and would never have thought of any time being necessary for eating, till she felt hungry. But she had been taught to sew well and quickly, and she had always made her own underclothes, and felled all the seams, and a good many girls will know how much that means. She sat sewing and thinking, planning all kinds of reforms and experiments, when she heard Elizabeth stirring in the room next hers. It was the linen room, and Elizabeth was putting away clean clothes, Margaret knew by the clank of the drawer-handles. Now! this was the moment to begin. She laid down her work, and went into the linen room.
"May I see you put them away, Elizabeth?" she asked. "I always like to see your piles of towels,—they are so even and smooth."
Elizabeth looked up, and her face brightened. "And welcome, Miss Margaret!" she said. "I'll be pleased enough. 'Tis dreadful lonesome, and Mis' Cheriton gone. Not that she could come up here, I don't mean; but I always knew she was there, and she was like a mother to me, and I could always go to her. Yes, miss, the towels do look nice, and I love to keep 'em so."
"They are beautiful!" said Margaret, with genuine enthusiasm, for the shelves and drawers were like those she had read about in "Soll und Haben." She had loved them in the book, but never thought of looking at them in reality. "Oh, what lovely damask this is, Elizabeth! It shines like silver! I never saw such damask as this."
"'Tis something rare, miss, I do be told," Elizabeth replied.
"Mr. Montfort brought them towels back from Germany, three years ago, because he thought they would please his aunt, and they did, dear lady. Hand spun and wove they are, she said; and there's only one place where they make this weave and this pattern. See, Miss Margaret! 'Tis roses, coming out of a little loaf of bread like; and there was a story about it, some saint, but I don't rightly remember what. There! I have tried to remember that story, ever since Mis' Cheriton went, but it seems I can't."
"Oh, oh, it must be Saint Elizabeth of Hungary!" cried Margaret, bending in delight over the smooth silvery stuff. "Why, how perfectly enchanting!"
"Yes, miss, that's it!" cried Elizabeth, beaming with pleasure. "Saint Elizabeth it was; and maybe you'll know the story, Miss Margaret. I never like to ask Mr. Montfort, of course, but I should love dearly to hear it."
Margaret asked nothing better. She told the lovely story as well as she knew how, and before she had finished, Elizabeth's eyes as well as her own were full of tears. One of Elizabeth's tears even fell on the towel, and she cried out in horror, and wiped it away as if it had been a poison-spot, and laid the sacred damask back in its place. Margaret felt the moment given to her.