They were Mother's dams, hastily made, late at night, and with all
Mother's genial impatience at useful sewing as opposed to beautiful.
Laura's intention had been to shield Mother from criticism, as well as
to spare Miss Day's feelings. But to have done it so clumsily as this!
To have had to wince under Miss Day's scepticism! It was only a wonder
the governess had not there and then taxed her with the fib. For who
believed in old nurses nowadays? They were a stock property, borrowed
on the spur of the moment from readings in THE FAMILY HERALD, from
Tennyson's LADY CLARE. Why on earth had such a far-fetched excuse leapt
to her tongue? Why could she not have said Sarah, the servant, the
maid-of-all-work? Then Miss Day would have had no chance to sniff, and
she, Laura, could have believed herself believed, instead of having to
fret over her own stupidity.--But what she would like more than
anything to know was, why the mending of the stockings at home should
NOT be Sarah's work? Why must it just be Mother--her mother alone--who
made herself so disagreeably conspicuous, and not merely by darning the
stockings, but, what was a still greater grievance, by not even darning
them well?