'It's a duty to the cause, my dear! Remember how the daughters of Israel sewed curtains of scarlet and needlework for the ark in the wilderness. By all means let us show that we are in no respect behind the heathen in the graces of life! and let us show forth the beauty of holiness among the uncircumcised residuaries!'
It was not altogether plain to Sophia how holiness arrayed in blue silk was to advance the cause, but she let it pass. Her lady mother was in tolerably good humour, and that was a point in her favour. She consulted her about the shading of a rose in the worsted work, to break the current of her thoughts, and then, like the bather about to plunge into an unkindly sea, with firm-set teeth, and fingers clenched beneath her embroidery, she made the leap. After a preliminary cough to steady the tremor in her voice--
'Have you got that letter of mine, mamma? I think I must answer it to-day.'
'What letter?' demanded the old lady with a start.
'That letter from Rod--Mr. Brown.'
'I thought we had said all that need be spoken on that subject already.'
'You said I was unmaidenly,' replied Sophia, aghast at her own temerity; but even the sheep when it is cornered will turn its horns to the collie.
'And was that not enough for any right thinking young woman?' retorted the mother, showing a pink spot on either cheek--the red lamps of danger.
'I am not thinking of myself, mamma! Mr. Brown has written me a kind and a very urgent letter, and I think I owe him an answer of some kind, when he shows so deep an interest in me. You said yourself this morning that a girl will be an old maid and a failure if she is not married. I suppose you don't want me to propose to the men myself? and if a gentleman proposes to me, surely I owe him a civil answer.'
'The lassie's in a creel!' cried Mrs. Sangster, jumping up. She had a tingling in her finger tips, which not so many months before, would have relieved itself in an assault on her daughter's ears; but the blue silk, the tall womanly figure, or an unwonted determination in the girl's face, restrained her, and she sat down again.