wouldn't ef I could help it," she said. "Jest to please me,
darling, take a little lesson; you will be glad bimeby, you really
will. Why, this stitch is in the family, and it 'ud be 'a burning
shame for it to go out. Dear, dearie me, Alison, it aint a small thing
that could make me cry, but I'd cry ef this beautiful stitch, wot come
down from the Simpsons to the Phippses, and from the Phippses to the
Reeds, is lost. You must learn it ef you want to keep me cheerful,
Ally dear."

"But I thought I knew it, Grannie," said the girl.

"Not to say perfect, love--the loop don't go right with you, and the
loop's the p'int. Ef you don't draw that loop up clever and tight, you
don't get the quilting, and the quilting's the feature that none of the
workwomen in West London can master. Now, see yere, look at me. I'll
do a bit, and you watch."

Grannie took up the morsel of cambric; she began the curious movements
of the wrist and hand, the intricate, involved contortions of the
thread. The magic loop made its appearance; the quilting stood out in
richness and majesty on the piece of cambric. Grannie made three or
four perfect stitches in an incredibly short space of time. She then
put the cambric into her granddaughter's hand.

"Now, child," she said, "show me what you can do."

Alison yawned slightly, and took up the work without any enthusiasm.
She made the first correct mystic passage with needle and thread; when
she came to the loop she failed to go right, and the effect was bungled
and incomplete.

"Not that way; for mercy's sake, don't twist the thread like that!"
called Grannie, in an agony. "Give it to me; I'll show yer."

It seemed like profanation to see her exquisite work tortured and
murdered. She snatched the cambric from Alison, and set to work to
make another perfect stitch herself. At that moment there came the
sudden and terrible pain--the shooting agony up the arm, followed by
the partial paralysis of thumb and forefinger. Grannie could not help
uttering a suppressed groan; her face turned white; she felt a passing
sense of nausea and faintness; the work dropped from her hand; the
perspiration stood on her forehead. She looked at Alison with
wide-open, pitiful eyes.

"Wot is it, Grannie--what is it, darlin'? For God's sake, wot's
wrong?" said the girl, going on her knees and putting her arms round
the little woman.

"It's writers' cramp, honey, writers' cramp, and me that never writes