elves in the infinitely diverse pattern of her
masterpiece. Finally she could wait no longer, and one evening ventured to
bring her work down beside the fire where the family sat, hoping that some
good fortune would give her a place near the tallow candles on the
mantelpiece. She was on the last corner of the square, and her needle flew
in and out with inconceivable rapidity. No one noticed her, a fact which
filled her with relief, and by bedtime she had but a few more stitches to
add.

As she stood up with the others, the square fluttered out of her trembling
old hands and fell on the table. Sophia glanced at it carelessly. "Is that
the new quilt you're beginning on?" she asked with a yawn. "It looks like
a real pretty pattern. Let's see it." Up to that moment Mehetabel had
labored in the purest spirit of disinterested devotion to an ideal, but as
Sophia held her work toward the candle to examine it, and exclaimed in
amazement and admiration, she felt an astonished joy to know that her
creation would stand the test of publicity.

"Land sakes!" ejaculated her sister-in-law, looking at the many-colored
square. "Why, Mehetabel Elwell, where'd you git that pattern?"

"I made it up," said Mehetabel quietly, but with unutterable pride.

"No!" exclaimed Sophia incredulously. "_Did_ you! Why, I never see such a
pattern in my life. Girls, come here and see what your Aunt Mehetabel is
doing."

The three tall daughters turned back reluctantly from the stairs. "I don't
seem to take much interest in patchwork," said one listlessly.

"No, nor I neither!" answered Sophia; "but a stone image would take an
interest in this pattern. Honest, Mehetabel, did you think of it yourself?
And how under the sun and stars did you ever git your courage up to start
in a-making it? Land! Look at all those tiny squinchy little seams! Why
the wrong side ain't a thing _but_ seams!"

The girls echoed their mother's exclamations, and Mr. Elwell himself came
over to see what they were discussing. "Well, I declare!" he said, looking
at his sister with eyes more approving than she could ever remember. "That
beats old Mis' Wightman's quilt that got the blue ribbon so many times at
the county fair."

Mehetabel's heart swelled within her, and tears of joy moistened her old
eyes as she lay that night in her narrow, hard bed, too proud and excited
to sleep. The next day her sister-in-law amazed her by taking the huge pan
of potatoes out of her lap and se