There were three occupants of the sitting-room at the farm. Prudence and Alice Gordon were at the table, which was covered by a litter of tweed dress material and paper patterns. Prudence was struggling with a maze of skirt-folds, under which a sewing-machine was almost buried. Alice was cutting and pinning and basting seams at the other end of the table. Sarah Gurridge was standing beside the open window watching the rising of the storm.
Conversation came spasmodically. The girls were intent upon their work.
“It’s all very well to have new dresses,” said Prudence, with an impatient tug at the material on which 210 the machine was operating, “but I’m afraid half the pleasure of them is absorbed by the process of ‘making.’ Oh, these endless seams! And I don’t believe a single one of them is straight. I feel quite hopeless.”
“Cheer up, Prue,” said Alice, without looking up. She herself was endeavouring to set a wristband pattern upon a piece of stuff so that she could get the two bands out of barely enough cloth for one. “You should use more dash when working a machine. When you are turning it, imagine you are driving a ‘through mail’ to the coast and have to make up time. The seams will come all right.”
“Yes; and break cotton and needles, and––and land the engine over the side of a cut-bank, or run down a gang of plate-layers or something. There now, I’ve run clean off the cloth. I wish you wouldn’t talk so much.”
The two girls laughed whilst they joined efforts in righting the catastrophe.
“Isn’t it getting dark?” said Alice, when Prudence had once more settled to work.
Sarah spoke without turning from the window.
“The storm’s banking, child. The lightning is already flashing over Owl Hoot way. Hervey will only just escape it.”
“What did he want to go over to the ranch for?” asked Prudence. “He never seems to go anywhere else now. I should think Mr. Iredale will get sick of having him always round.”