Until Bedtime

Silas Foster, by the time we concluded our meal, had stript off his
coat, and planted himself on a low chair by the kitchen fire, with a
lapstone, a hammer, a piece of sole leather, and some waxed-ends, in
order to cobble an old pair of cowhide boots; he being, in his own
phrase, "something of a dab" (whatever degree of skill that may imply)
at the shoemaking business. We heard the tap of his hammer at
intervals for the rest of the evening.

The remainder of the party adjourned to the sitting-room. Good Mrs. Foster took her
knitting-work, and soon fell fast asleep, still keeping her needles in
brisk movement, and, to the best of my observation, absolutely footing
a stocking out of the texture of a dream. And a very substantial
stocking it seemed to be. One of the two handmaidens hemmed a towel,
and the other appeared to be making a ruffle, for her Sunday's wear,
out of a little bit of embroidered muslin which Zenobia had probably
given her.

It was curious to observe how trustingly, and yet how timidly, our poor
Priscilla betook herself into the shadow of Zenobia's protection. She
sat beside her on a stool, looking up every now and then with an
expression of humble delight at her new friend's beauty. A brilliant
woman is often an object of the devoted admiration--it might almost be
termed worship, or idolatry--of some young girl, who perhaps beholds
the cynosure only at an awful distance, and has as little hope of
personal intercourse as of climbing among the stars of heaven. We men
are too gross to comprehend it.