Dora stood for a moment as if rooted to the spot, scarcely able to believe her own eyes. She then darted forward, caught up the half-emptied bottle in one hand, and the stained, dripping linen in the other. The first glance at the embroidery showed the poor girl that the mischief done was utterly beyond repairing; in one minute the fruit of all her long toil had been completely destroyed!
“Oh, it is all my own fault—all my own fault—it could not have prospered!” cried out Dora, in a loud tone of anguish, as she put down first the bottle, then the embroidery, and then, hiding her face with her scarlet-stained fingers, she burst into a passion of weeping.
That cry, that weeping, reached the ears of her aunt, who had just approached her door, carrying with her the destined gifts for the twins—the Indian scarf, and the brooch with the miniature set in pearls.
“My darling girl, what is the matter?” exclaimed Miss Clare, opening the door in alarm. There was no need to repeat the unanswered question; the bottle, the little heap of embroidered linen dripping with scarlet ink, told their own story plainly enough. Miss Clare saw the nature of the accident which had happened, and, with kind sympathy for her niece’s great disappointment, folded her affectionately in her arms.
“IT is vexatious, my Dora, very vexatious,” said Miss Clare, in a tone of condolence; “it is trying to you, after all the pains which you have bestowed on your work, to see that work suddenly spoiled. But still take comfort, dear child, in the thought that no labor undertaken for our Master can really be lost.”
Dora sobbed more bitterly than before, for she knew that hers had not been labor undertaken for the Master, and she felt that her time and toil had been worse than lost.
Miss Clare did all that she could to comfort her favorite niece. She showed Dora the beautiful brooch which she herself valued so greatly; she told her that she had brought it as a birthday remembrance; but, much to the lady’s surprise, Dora only shook her head sadly, and sobbed forth, “Not for me—not for me! Oh, that model, I wish that I never had touched it—I wish that I had never set a stitch in one of those curtains!”
“I see that you are distressed, very naturally distressed, by the mishap which has befallen your curtains, fearing that thereby the whole model may be spoilt,” observed Theodora. “You are thinking of the disappointment of your brother and sisters, of the Ragged-school children who are coming to-day, of my friends who are invited to see the model. You think that there is no time to repair the effects of the spilling the scarlet ink; but I think that I see a way to remedy the mischief;” and Miss Clare, as she spoke, placed before the weeping girl her beautiful embroidered scarf. “I had intended to give this to Agnes when I gave you the miniature brooch, but I will now alter my plan. I will try to find out, or purchase, some other remembrance for Agnes; and, with a little alteration, do you not think, my sweet girl, that this work will do nicely for the inner curtains and veil?”