"Come in," said the gentle voice, in answer to her knock. "Oh, Irene, is that you. Are you come up to sit with me? How nice?" The invalid's face brightened perceptibly.
"I came for the stocking basket," said Irene. "I am ordered to keep still, but I simply can't while I am so excited. I feel I want to be doing something to work it off me. Would you mind if I sat here with you for a little while, Mrs. Carlyle, and did some darning?"
"It would be the greatest pleasure to me, dear. I was longing for someone to talk to. I tried to mend some of the stockings myself, but I only managed to do one pair for Debby to put on. My eyes ached so. One seems to twist them if one tries to do fine work when lying down."
"Of course one does. Mrs. Carlyle," eagerly, "will you let the stocking basket be my charge while I am here? I love to have a big pile of work to do, and make my way through it. Would it bother you if I worked up here sometimes?"
"Not in the least, dear child. There is nothing I should enjoy more. I often long for company, but ours is a busy household. With only one servant, it takes the girls all their time to keep the house in order."
Irene stooped low over the stocking-basket, lest her face should reveal anything.
"Of course it is too much for them," Mrs. Carlyle went on anxiously, "and we shall have to have in extra help when the holidays are over, and their new governess comes. They can't possibly do their lessons and the housework as well. Next year I hope to be about again, and able to take some of the load off their shoulders, but," with a little sigh, "next year is a long way off."
"I wish I could help," said Irene. "I love housework, and keeping things nice. I am longing for the time when we shall have a house again. Mrs. Carlyle, have you any dark blue darning wool that I can mend Tom's stockings with?"
"No, dear, I have not, I have taken up that pair ever so many times and put them down again because I had no wool to mend them with."
Irene thrust her hand in, "Um!" Someone had not been so particular, she thought, as her eye fell on a brown darn on the heel, and a black one at the back of the leg.