CHAPTER XIV

WORK

It might have been expected that Dora would also have forgotten to say her prayers, but such was not the case. She remembered to kneel down by her bedside and hurry through a mere form of words, without paying the slightest attention to their meaning, thinking of her embroidery all the time. It was a satisfaction to the conscience of Dora that she had repeated a prayer, and she never stopped to ask herself whether that prayer were not in itself a sin.

Dora with needle and scissors set first to her work of unpicking. But every one who has tried such an occupation must know it to be one of the most tedious and disagreeable of tasks. It was doubly so to Dora, because she greatly admired the embroidery work which she was thus beginning to spoil.

"It is a great pity to undo this," Dora said to herself before she had been for two minutes plying the scissors. "I won't go on with this foolish unpicking. After all, my undoing every stitch of my pretty work would not undo the fault of my having put it in on Sunday."

This was indeed true. A fault once committed, no human being has power to undo; but while looking to the Lord alone for forgiveness, we are bound to prove the sincerity of our regret for a fault by making what amends lie in our power. Dora took the easier, but far more dangerous way, of trying to forget the fault altogether, or to make up for it by what she considered to be her zeal in charity work. She certainly sewed very diligently on that dull morning, scarcely lifting her eyes from the pattern which she had neatly traced on the linen. She was filling up the pencilled outlines with chain stitch, satin-stitch, and other stitches, in bright-coloured silks and thread of gold.

"Oh, look!—Just look how famously Dora has been getting on with her work!" exclaimed the admiring Elsie, when, summoned by the bell at half-past eight, the children had assembled in the breakfast-room, awaiting their mother's coming down to prayers.

"Why, you don't mean to say that you have worked all that this morning?" said Lucius to Dora.

The question was rather an awkward one for Dora to answer—it took the girl by surprise. Dora replied to it by an evasion, which was another act of deceit. "I couldn't begin my embroidery on Saturday night," she said, actually congratulating herself that she had this time spoken "the exact truth," as if it were not the very essence of falsehood to "deceive," even though the lips may utter no lie. As Dora had not sewn on Saturday, she knew that Lucius would take it for granted that she had been so clever and industrious as to do all the work which he saw on the Monday morning, for he would certainly never suspect her of having put in one stitch upon Sunday.

"Don't you admire Dora's curtain? Is it not lovely?" said Amy to Agnes, who was examining the work of her twin.

"Rather," was the reply, uttered in a hesitating tone.

Agnes could not truthfully have expressed warmer admiration, for she did not think that the figures of the cherubim were at all gracefully drawn, nor did she consider that the colours were perfectly blended, there being too little scarlet in proportion to the purple and blue. But the cold praise of the twin was not unnaturally set down by her family as coming from a mean, unworthy motive.

"She is as jealous as a cat!" exclaimed Lucius. "Agnes can't forgive poor Dora for having been trusted with the most difficult part of the work."

The irritable temper of Agnes fired up in a moment at an observation which she felt to be unjust as well as unkind. But Agnes on that Monday morning had not merely said her prayers, she had really prayed for grace to conquer besetting sin; and now, though she could not help her cheeks flushing scarlet at the taunt of her brother, she pressed her lips closely together, and kept down the passionate reply which it was so hard, so very hard, not to utter.

"How much of your work have you done this morning, Agnes?" asked Elsie, rather proudly, showing her own three inches of seam in the Turkey-red cloth.

"I have cut out my mohair curtains," said Agnes, who had also, though she did not choose to say so, been mending her gloves, in obedience to the known wish of her mother.

"Cut out—only cut out!" laughed Lucius, who had been doing great things in the nailing and hammering line. "If you take the matter so easily, Agnes, every one will 'cut you out,' though you may not be made into curtains!"

Agnes was provoked at the joke, and all the more so because Dora and Elsie laughed, and Amy could not help smiling. Few persons like to be laughed at, and the peevish-tempered Agnes was certainly not one of the few. But the girl had made a resolve, not in vain trust in her own power of carrying it out, but in a spirit of humble prayer, to set a watch before her lips; and if she could not speak kindly, not to utter a single word. Agnes could not, indeed, yet manage to take a disagreeable joke with good humour, but she bore it in resolute silence, she did not utter any retort.