"With a patch much larger than that you are sewing on it."
"I shouldn't mend it that way," remarked Sydney. "I'd darn it."
"Thank you both for your very kind and disinterested advice," sniffed Zoe. "But I learned how to mend before I ever saw you. And I should mend those gloves in a better way than you are taking."
"If you know so well how to mend, Madam Zoe, will you please give me some instruction about mending this shoe?" said Herbert. "Cobbling is not in my line."
"Neither is it in mine, Sir Herbert," she returned, drawing herself up with a lofty air.
"Such silly pride! They should mend their ways if not their garments," remarked Maud, in a scornful aside.
"One should think it beneath her to mend even a worn stocking," said
Rosie.
"No," responded Eva, "and she should mend it well."
"Your first syllable is not hard to guess, children," said Mrs.
Dinsmore; "evidently it is mend."
With that the actors withdrew, and presently Chester Dinsmore returned alone, marching in and around the room with head erect and pompous air. His clothes were of fine material and fashionable cut, he wore handsome jewelry, sported a gold headed cane, and strutted to and fro, gazing about him with an air of lofty disdain as of one who felt himself superior to all upon whom his glances fell.