ll tight and out of
good stout yarn. They're very lasting."

"I do believe they're like what Uncle David makes," said John. "Don't
you remember, he used to give us a pair now and then?"

"Well, I declare, there's nothing new under the sun!" laughed Aunt
Patience.

Hanny was quite sure there could not be any connection between her
delicate lace and stout yarn mittens, and she meant to ask Uncle David
the next time they made a visit. Both ladies praised her a good deal,
especially when they heard of the shirts she had been making with
Margaret.

"It used to be a great thing," said Aunt Patience. "When I was six years
old I had knit a pair of stockings by myself, and when I was eight I
had made my father a shirt. All the gussets were stitched, just as you
do a bosom. My, what a sight of fine work there was then!"

"I'll tell you something I read the other day in a queer old book I
picked up down at the office," began Ben. "When little Prince Edward was
two years old, the Princess Elizabeth who was afterward queen made him a
shirt or smock, as it was called, with drawn work and embroidery. And
she was only six."

"Children have more lessons to study now," said Mrs. Underhill, half in
apology. "And Hanny has done some drawn work for me, and embroidered
some aprons."

"And Queen Elizabeth spent enough time later on with gay gallants,"
remarked Aunt Nancy. "So I do not know as her early industry held out."

"I'd rather have had her splendid reign than to have made shirts for an
army," declared Ben.

"Well, we all have our duties in this world," sighed Aunt Patience. "I
learned to make shirts, but I never had a husband or boys to make them
for."

They all laughed at that. But what would a little girl say now if she
had to stitch down the middle of a shirt bosom, following a drawn
thread, and taking up only two threads at every stitch?

There certainly was great need of Elias Howe.

The visitors declared they must get home by dark. There was the poor
cat, and the fires must need looking after. Mrs. Underhill was fain to
keep them to tea, but instead packed them up a basket of cold turkey and
some delicious boiled ham, a dozen or two crullers, and a nice mince
pie. John was to see the old ladies home.

When they were gone Hanny went up to the "spare" room, for in one drawer
of the best bureau she had kept her beautiful doll, which had never been
permanently named. She opened it and kneeling down raised the napkin