the wooden chair on which her gracious lady had sat
during the last part of their conversation.

Anna took from the bench where she had been sitting
the crochet in which she had been interrupted.

She had lately been happily engaged in making a
beautiful band of crochet lace which was destined to
serve as trimming for Mrs. Jervis Blake's dressing-table.
The band was now very nearly finished; there
were over three yards of it done. Worked in the best
and strongest linen thread, it was the kind of thing
which would last, even if it were cleaned very frequently,
for years and years, and which would grow
finer with cleaning.

The band was neatly rolled up and pinned, to keep
it clean and nice; but now Anna slowly unpinned and
unrolled it.

Yes, it was a beautiful piece of work; rather coarser
than what she was accustomed to do, but then she knew
that Miss Rose preferred the coarser to the very fine
crochet.

She tested a length of it with a sharp pull, and the
result was wonderful -- from her point of view most
gratifying! It hardly gave at all. She remembered
how ill her mistress had succeeded when she, Anna,
had tried to teach her to do this kind of work some
sixteen to seventeen years ago. After a very little
while Mrs. Otway had given up trying to do it, knowing
that she could never rival her good old Anna. Mrs.
Otway's lace had been so rough, so uneven; a tiny pull,
and it became all stringy and out of shape.

Yes, whatever strain were put on this band, it would
surely recover -- recover, that is, if it were dealt with
as she, Anna, would deal with such a piece of work. It

[[357]]

p356 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p357w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p358

v?