ted cottons; and not only ladies'
dresses, but gentlemen's, and all kinds of curtains and hangings, were
very largely ornamented with the needle. Mrs De la Laund kept eighteen
apprentices, and they worked in a long, narrow room with windows at each
end--not glass windows, but just square openings, where light, wind, and
rain or snow, came in together. It was about half an hour before it
would be time to stop work. There was no clock in the room, and there
were only three in all Lincoln. Clocks such as we have were then
unknown. They had but two measures of time--the clepsydra, or
water-clock, and the sun-dial. When a man had neither of these, he
employed all kinds of ingenious expedients for guessing what time it
was, if the day were cloudy and the sun not to be seen. King Alfred had
invented the plan, long before, of having candles to burn a certain
time; the monks knew how long it took to repeat certain psalms. Mrs De
la Laund stopped work when the cathedral bell tolled for vespers--that
is, at four o'clock.

"You look tired, Antigone," said Emma to her nearest neighbour, a pale
girl of eighteen.

"Tired? Of course I'm tired," was the unpromising answer. "Where's the
good? One must go on."

"She does not like the work," said the girl on the other side of her.

"Do you?" responded Antigone, turning to her.

The girl gave a little laugh. "I don't think whether I like it or not,"
she said. "I like being taught what will get me a living some day."

"I hate it!" answered Antigone. "Why should I have to work for my
living, when Lady Margaret, up at the Castle, never needs to put a
needle in or out unless she pleases?"

"Nay, you're wrong there. My sister Justina is scullion-maid at the
Castle, and I am sure, from what she tells me, you wouldn't like to
change with Lady Margaret."

"My word, but I would!"

"Why not, Sarah?" asked Emma.

"Well," replied Sarah with a smile, "Antigone likes what she calls a bit
of fun when the day's work is over; and she would not get nearly so much
as she does, if she were in Lady Margaret's place. She dwells in three
chambers in her mother's tower, and never comes down except to hall,"
(namely, to meals,) "with now and then a decorous dance under the eyes
of the Lady Countess. No running races on the green, nor chattering
away to everybody, nor games--except upstairs in her own room with a few
other young damsels. Antigone would think she was in prison, to be use