"Well, you can, Beth," Aunt Victoria answered, after sitting rigidly upright for a moment, blinking rapidly. "Help me to unpick an old gown. I am going to make another like it, and want it unpicked for a pattern."
"Can you make a gown?" Beth asked in surprise.
Aunt Victoria smiled. Then she took down an old black gown that was hanging behind the door, and handed it to Beth with a pair of sharp scissors.
"I'll undo the body part," Beth said, "and that will save your eyes. I don't think this gown owes you much."
"I do not understand that expression, Beth," said Aunt Victoria.
"Don't you," said Beth, working away with the scissors cheerfully. "Harriet always says that, when she's got all the good there is to be got out of anything—the dusters, you know, or the dishcloth. I once did a piece of unpicking like this for mamma, and she didn't explain properly, or something—at all events, I took out a great deal too much, so she——"
"Don't call your mamma 'she.' 'She' is the cat."
"Mamma, then. Mamma beat me."
"Don't say she beat you."
"I said mamma."