the longing grew
stronger and stronger to give it material life with her nimble old
fingers.

She gasped at her daring when this idea first swept over her and put it
away as one does a sinfully selfish notion, but she kept coming back to it
again and again. Finally she said compromisingly to herself that she would
make one "square," just one part of her design, to see how it would look.
Accustomed to the most complete dependence on her brother and his wife,
she dared not do even this without asking Sophia's permission. With a
heart full of hope and fear thumping furiously against her old ribs, she
approached the mistress of the house on churning-day, knowing with the
innocent guile of a child that the country woman was apt to be in a good
temper while working over the fragrant butter in the cool cellar.

Sophia listened absently to her sister-in-law's halting, hesitating
petition. "Why, yes, Mehetabel," she said, leaning far down into the huge
churn for the last golden morsels--"why, yes, start another quilt if you
want to. I've got a lot of pieces from the spring sewing that will work in
real good." Mehetabel tried honestly to make her see that this would be no
common quilt, but her limited vocabulary and her emotion stood between her
and expression. At last Sophia said, with a kindly impatience: "Oh, there!
Don't bother me. I never could keep track of your quiltin' patterns,
anyhow. I don't care what pattern you go by."

With this overwhelmingly, although unconsciously, generous permission
Mehetabel rushed back up the steep attic stairs to her room, and in a
joyful agitation began preparations for the work of her life. It was even
better than she hoped. By some heaven-sent inspiration she had invented a
pattern beyond which no patchwork quilt could go.

She had but little time from her incessant round of household drudgery for
this new and absorbing occupation, and she did not dare sit up late at
night lest she burn too much candle. It was weeks before the little square
began to take on a finished look, to show the pattern. Then Mehetabel was
in a fever of impatience to bring it to completion. She was too
conscientious to shirk even the smallest part of her share of the work of
the house, but she rushed through it with a speed which left her panting
as she climbed to the little room. This seemed like a radiant spot to her
as she bent over the innumerable scraps of cloth which already in her
imagination ranged thems