o be a missionary. But Grace was not used to being read to,
and, as she said, "it fidgeted her sadly," and she was wondering all the
time what mistakes mother would make in the shop without her, and she
began to be haunted with a doubt whether she had put out a parcel of
raisins that Farmer Drew's man was to call for. The worry about it
prevented her from attending to a word that was read; indeed she could
hardly keep herself from jumping up, making up an excuse, and rushing
home to see about the raisins!

Then she greatly disapproved of the shape of the bedgown she had been
set to make, and did not believe it would sit properly. It was ladies'
cutting towards which she felt contemptuous, and yet she would have
thought it impolite to interfere. Besides, it might make the whole
sitting go on longer, and Grace was burning to get home. At last the
reading ended, but oh! my patience, that creature Naomi was actually
putting herself forward to ask some nonsensical question, where some
place was, and Miss Agnes must needs get a map, and every one go and
look at it--Grace too, not to be behindhand or uncivil to the young
ladies; but had not she had enough of maps and such useless stupid
things long ago when she left school at Miss Perkins's?

When at last this was over, Mrs. Somers came and spoke to her while she
was putting on her hat, and thanked her pleasantly, saying that she was
afraid that beginning in the middle of a book made it less interesting,
but that one day more would finish it. Then she added "I don't like the
pattern of that bedgown, do you?"

"No, Mrs. Somers, not at all," replied Grace. "It quite went against me
to put good work into it."

"I wonder whether you could help us to a better shape next time," said
Mrs. Somers. "We should be very much obliged to you. This pattern came
out of a needlework book, and I am not satisfied about it."

Grace promised, and went away in better humour, but more because she had
been made important than because she cared for what she had been doing.
She was glad no one could say she had been behindhand with her service,
but it was a burthen to her, and she did not open her mind to enter into
it so as to make it otherwise.

Indeed, her mind was more full of her accounts and the bad debts, and of
the cheapest way of getting in her groceries than of anything else. As
she walked back through the village she wondered whether Mrs. Somers and
Miss Manners would send to her mothe