Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/251

Rh One of the gowns she wore was a blue silk,—blue of that pale yet clear tint which summer skies take on at noon of the hottest days. On this were wrought pond lilies, cool, white, fragrant, golden-centred—just a lap full, no more—with a few trailing stems and green glistening pads, reaching to the hem, and falling back to right and left,—one big knot at the throat, and a cluster of buds and coiling stems on the wrist of each sleeve; that was all; but a queen might have been proud to wear the gown. Another was of soft white crape; upon this she had wrought green and amber and silver white grasses, in a trailing wreath, yet hardly defined enough to be a wreath, across the shoulders, to the belt, from the belt carelessly across the front, to the hem, and then around the hem, which lay heavily on the ground. These gowns she had wrought especially to wear for "brother Jim," to do honor to his Commencement Day. "Did they not take a great deal of time, Ally?" said I. In my ignorance of the great difference between her type of work and ordinary embroidery, I had been sorry and surprised to see such evidences of love of mere ornamentation. I could not understand how Mrs. Allen had permitted it.

Ally laughed a little merry laugh.

"Not half so much time as to hem ruffles, Mr. Will," she said. "I did it at odd minutes."

"Can thee not show him how it is done, Ally,