"Stop. Yes, you can. Don't break it. I will show you. Thread your needle."
"I haven't one big enough."
That want was supplied.
"Now you shall begin with running this heel," said Mrs. Candy. "See, you shall put this marble egg into the stocking, to darn upon. Now look here. You begin down here, at the middle, so—and take up only one thread at a stitch, do you see? and skip so many threads each time——"
"But there is no hole there, Aunt Erminia."
"I know that. Heels should always be run before they come to holes. There are half-a-dozen heels here, I should think, that require to be run. Now, do you see how I do it? You may take the stocking, and when you have darned a few rows, come and let me see how you get on."
Matilda in a small fit of despair took the stocking to a little distance and sat down to work. The marble egg was heavy to hold. It took a long while to go up one side of the heel and down the other. She was tired of sitting under constraint and so still. And her Aunt Candy seemed like a jailer, and that perfumed room like a prison. The quicker her work could be done, the better for her. So Matilda reflected, and her needle went accordingly.
"I have done it, Aunt Erminia," she proclaimed at last.
"Done the heel?"
"Yes, ma'am."