To-day she watched her aunt as she opened drawers, took the white covers from blankets and comforts, inspected sheets and patch-work quilts with an eye to necessary darning.
What a dreadful waste of time to have cut up all those little patches and have sewn them together, Blue Bonnet thought, as her aunt folded a quilt and returned it to its particular place on the shelf. She felt sure that Aunt Lucinda could have bought much prettier quilts with less bother.
"It seems almost like a sanctuary, here," she said at last, leaning against the window and watching the proceedings with interest. "It's so beautifully clean, and I adore that lavender smell. Where does it come from?"
Miss Clyde reached under a sheet and brought forth a small bag made of white tarlatan filled with dried flowers and leaves.
"Oh, I love it," she said. "I must get some and send it to Benita. Benita is very particular about our beds. She says my mother was."
"She could not have been a Clyde and escaped that, my dear. It is a passion with all of us--linen and fine china."
"When I have a home I shall have a linen closet just like this," she said, glancing about admiringly.
"Then you cannot begin too soon to learn how to take care of it. Few things require closer supervision than a linen closet, in any home. You must learn to mend; not ordinary mending, but fine darning."
Miss Clyde cast her eye over a pile of sheets. She opened one and handed it to Blue Bonnet, directing her attention to a rent which had been skillfully repaired in one corner.
Blue Bonnet noted the stitches of gossamer fineness with absorbed interest. Then she folded the sheet carefully and handed it back with a sigh.
"I never could do it, Aunt Lucinda. Never, in a thousand years. I know I couldn't. I hate sewing."
"Then I fear you could never have a linen closet like this, Blue Bonnet. Mending represents but a small part of the detail and system necessary to good housekeeping."
"But, maybe, perhaps I could hire some one. Couldn't I, don't you think?"
"You certainly could not instruct servants if you did not know how to work, yourself. That would be quite impossible. Could your teachers have imparted their knowledge to you if they, themselves, had not been students?"