:

"You were ironing lace this morning, instead of mending it, weren't you,
Mary?"

She looked up quickly.

"No, I wasn't ironing lace--lace must never be ironed, David! It must
all be pulled out carefully with the fingers, and the pattern must be
pricked out on a frame or a cushion, with fine steel pins, just as if it
were in the making. I was ironing a beautiful muslin gown for a lady who
buys all her washing dresses in Paris. She couldn't get any one in
England to wash them properly till she found me. She used to send them
all away to a woman in Brittany before. The French are wonderful
washers,--we're not a patch on them over here. So you saw me ironing?"

"I could just catch a glimpse of you at work through the door," he
answered--"and I heard you talking as well----"

"To Mrs. Twitt? Ah, I thought you did!" And she laughed. "Well, I wish
you could have seen her, as well as heard her! She is the quaintest old
soul! She's the wife of a stonemason who lives at the bottom of the
village, near the shore. Almost everything that happens in the day or
the night is a sign of good or bad luck with her. I expect it's because
her husband makes so many tombstones that she gets morbid,--but, oh
dear!--if God managed the world according to Mrs. Twitt's notions, what
a funny world it would be!"

She laughed again,--then shook her finger archly at him.

"You _pretended_ to be asleep, then, when I came in to see if you heard
us talking?"

He nodded a smiling assent.

"That was very wrong of you! You should never pretend to be what you are
not!" He started nervously at this, and to cover his confusion called to
the little dog, Charlie, who at once jumped up on his knees;--"You
shouldn't, really! Should he, Charlie?" Charlie sat upright, and lolled
a small red tongue out between two rows of tiny white teeth, by way of a
laugh at the suggestion--"People--even dogs--are always found out when
they do that!"

"What are those bright flowers out in your garden just beyond the door
where you are sitting?" Helmsley asked, to change the conversation.

"Phloxes,"--she answered--"I've got all kinds and colours--crimson,
white, mauve, pink, and magenta. Those which you can see from where you
sit are the crimson ones--father's favourites. I wish you could get out
and look at the Virginian creeper--it's lovely just now--quite a blaze
of scarlet all over the cottage. And the Michaelmas daisies are coming
on finely."

"Michaelmas!" h