CHAPTER XIII.

SCRAPS AND RIBBONS.

"HERE are two large sheets of cardboard," said Ada, after tea on that Saturday evening; "and a lot of ribbon, mamma, blue and pink, to bind the edges with."

"Did you think of any sewing silk?"

"Nellie did," said Ada; "but I am sure I should not, if she had not suggested it."

"I brought my large scissors, fortunately, and I have some tolerably stout needles. Now, Arthur, how many nearly square pieces will that sheet cut? See, we must have at least an inch outside the edge of the hymn sheets all round."

"I think it will cut three the top way, and as it is not square, it will allow three the other way too; then they will be slightly oblong. Is that right?"

"Yes; now what can we rule it with, to get it straight?"

They looked round the room. "I don't see anything," said Ada, leaning both her arms on the table, and resting her chin on her hands.

Suddenly a bright thought struck Arthur. "The edge of that sideboard drawer is straight enough, I daresay."

"Oh, quite! Let us have it by all means."

Arthur lifted it out, and laid his novel T square as carefully as he could on the cardboard, and then drew a bold line with his pencil from end to end.

"Now another," said his mother.

When he had measured and drawn two lines both ways, he proceeded to cut the sheet into nine squares, which turned out to measure nearly ten inches by seven each.

Nellie sat by with her thimble on, and Christina had been also invited to tea to-night, specially to help. Ada quickly seized upon a piece, threaded her needle with pink silk, and taking one end of the pink ribbon was the first to set off binding. Arthur passed Christina another piece, and she took the other end of Ada's pink ribbon.

"How close ought the stitches to be?" asked Ada.

"About a quarter of an inch; do not backstitch it, they will look better on both sides if you do not."

"Here's a piece for you, Nell," said Arthur, cutting off another, "and one for mamma."

"But there are Netta and Isabel," said Nellie.

"Can they do it well enough?" asked Ada.

"Yes; I am going to help them," said their mother. "Come, dears, and sit close to me."

"Will these be for us?" asked Netta.

"Yes; will you have pink or blue?"

"I should like blue," said Netta.

"And I shall choose pink, then," said Isabel.

"Very well. Now, Arthur, are you going to make one?"

"Can boys make them?"

"Perfectly well; some of the prettiest I saw at Llandudno were made by boys."

"All right; set me going, then!"

"Here's the needle; which colour for you?"

"Same as Nellie's."

"Blue?"

"Yes; like her eyes."

"Nonsense," said Nellie; "how ridiculous you are, Arthur."

"Not at all; you can't deny it."

"I can; they are no colour at all."

"Oh!" said Arthur.

"Here, Arthur," said his mother; "now see how cleverly you can do it."

Arthur turned out to be the most absorbed of the party, and Netta and Isabel nearly equalled him.

He bent over his cardboard, and hardly looked up till he laid his two pieces, very tolerably done, before his mother.

"Capital!" she said. "Now you have to sew the backs together."

"Oh, my!" groaned Arthur: "I thought I was done."

"This will not take long," said his mother encouragingly. "See, Christina has done hers."

"Of course; she's a girl. Well, 'may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb!' as the man said to excuse himself. Is this the way you mean?"

"Yes; to form a hinge."

"Shall I put strings?" asked Christina.

"Yes; sew them on each side. And Ada, just look in my basket; I believe I have some elastic there. Those I saw had two pieces of elastic inside, from top to bottom, to hold the hymn sheets."

"Here it is!" said Ada.

"The very thing. Now I should not put it tight, but just slightly drawn so that it will not pull the cardboard."

"The stitches will show, I am afraid," said Nellie.

"They need not; if you do them with silk just into the binding I do not think they will."

"No; mine do not—see," said Christina; "but they want some ornament."

"I was coming to that," said Mrs. Arundel. "Arthur, have you any scraps upstairs? Did you bring them with you?"

Arthur thought a moment. "I believe I did; I'll go and see."

Netta had some time ago gone out to Mrs. Ross with a message from her mother, and at this moment, the maid came in with a basin of stiff paste.

"Well done!" said Arthur, coming in with his scraps, and nearly running over the paste.

"I have not many," he said, "but we can get some on Monday. Here is a pretty one for the front of yours, Netta; and very appropriate too—a picture of a shepherd carrying the lambs."

"Oh, dear Arthur, how nice!" said Netta, as she e looked with pride on her first side, which was now nearly finished.

"Let me see," said Tom, who had been lying quietly watching them all this time.

"Mine is to be for you, Tom," said Christina; "but I am going to make it pretty at home, and I shall hope to bring it to you on Monday morning."

"Oh, thank you!" said Tom, looking up gratefully.

Meanwhile all the rest had been eagerly turning over Arthur's scraps, and he had very good-naturedly allowed them all to pick and choose. Isabel was delighted with a ship on a very blue sea, and Ada was thinking of arranging a number of small ones in a pattern round the centre of hers, on which she intended to write her name.

"What are you going to do with yours, Nell?" he asked.

"I have my ideas," she said, shaking her head; "wait till Walter comes."

"Everything is Walter," said Ada, rather crossly.

"Here he is!" exclaimed all.

"What a working party!" he said, walking in; "why I meant to be present, but my walk took me longer than I expected. Let's see," going up to Netta and Isabel. "Very well indeed, children; that's right."

"And we are going to get up early on Monday, and do the other sides, because we can't work so fast as the others."

"That will be capital. Well, what does patient Nellie want?"

"She always waits till everybody else is served," said Arthur.

"Well, Nellie?"

"Could you illuminate me a text on mine, do you think, Walter—just a very simple one?"

"To be sure. Both sides?"

"Oh, yes; that would be nice!"

"Very well; tell me what text, and I am your humble servant." He went up to get his colour box, and soon he had joined the "working party" too, as Netta said.

"But these take a jolly long time!" exclaimed Arthur. "Did you mean, mamma, that we were to make for other children?"

"Oh, no! But I expect we shall have to make a couple to lend as patterns; they will all want to make their own."

"I am to have one," said Tom to Walter; "Christina is going to make it for me."

"That is very kind indeed," said Walter, who was busily sketching in the letters in pencil of the text Nellie had pointed out to him. On one side it was to be, "He shall gather the lambs with His arm;" and on the other, "And carry them in His bosom."

On Monday, just before the service, Christina appeared, and placed in Tom's hand a really beautiful portfolio. She had painted in water-colours a very good representation of the storm, with the life-boat in the middle, and just to be seen between two great waves, the sinking wreck in the distance. On the other side were the words—"Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."

Tom's delight was unbounded, and he placed his two hymn sheets in it with the greatest satisfaction.

Christina quite understood his tremulous lips when he tried to thank her, and told him it was some of the pleasantest work she had ever done.

"We shall both remember the Life-boat, dear," she said softly—"always."

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