"I'm ever so much obliged, Benigna," said Mrs. Bankside. "You know how I love to do things. It's a loom, isn't it? Can you show me how it works?"
"Of course I can, my dear; that's just what I ran in for—I was afraid you wouldn't know. But you are so clever with your hands that I'm sure you'll enjoy it. I do."
Whereat Mrs. MacAvelly taught Mrs. Bankside the time-honored art of weaving. And Mrs. Bankside enjoyed it more than any previous handicraft she had essayed.
She did it well, beginning with rather coarse and simple weaves; and gradually learning the finer grades of work. Despising as she did the more modern woolens, she bought real wool yarn of a lovely red—and made some light warm flannelly stuff in which she proceeded to rapturously enclose her little grandchildren.
Mr. Bankside warmly approved, murmuring affectionately, "'She seeketh wool and flax—she worketh willingly with her hands.'"
He watched little Bob and Polly strenuously "helping" the furnace man to clear the sidewalk, hopping about like red-birds in their new caps and coats; and his face beamed with the appositeness of his quotation, as he remarked, "She is not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are clothed with scarlet!" and he proffered an extra, wholly spontaneous kiss, which pleased her mightily.
"You dear man!" she said with a hug; "I believe you'd rather find a proverb to fit than a gold mine!"
To which he triumphantly responded: "'Wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.'"
She laughed sweetly at him. "And do you think wisdom stopped with that string of proverbs?"
"You can't get much beyond it," he answered calmly. "If we lived up to all there is in that list we shouldn't be far out, my dear!"