There are two sons and six daughters--one married, four grown-up, and one
at school in Brussels--and all with red hair! But straight and coarse, and
with freckles and white eyelashes. So, really, it is very kind of Lady
Katherine to have asked me here.
They are all as good as gold on top, and one does poker-work, and another
binds books, and a third embroiders altar-cloths, and the fourth knits
ties--all for charities, and they ask every one to subscribe to them
directly they come to the house. The tie and the altar-cloth ones were
sitting working hard in the drawing-room--Kirstie and Jean are their
names; Jessie and Maggie, the poker-worker and the bookbinder, have a
sitting-room to themselves--their work-shop they call it. They were there
still, I suppose, for I did not see them until dinner. We used to meet
once a year at Mrs. Carruthers's Christmas parties ever since ages and
ages, and I remember I hated their tartan sashes, and they generally had
colds in their heads, and one year they gave every one mumps, so they
were not asked the next. The altar-cloth one, Jean, is my age, the other
three are older.
It was really very difficult to find something to say, and I can quite
understand common people fidgeting when they feel worried like this. I
have never fidgeted since eight years ago, the last time Mrs.
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