She sat twirling the cord upon which the dozens of great brass rings were strung, watching the shining ellipse they made as they revolved,—­like a child set down upon the carpet with a plaything,—­expecting no answer, only waiting for the next vagrant whimsicality that should come across her brain,—­not altogether without method, either,—­to give it utterance.

“I don’t suppose I could convince you of it,” she resumed; “but I do actually have serious thoughts sometimes.  I think that very likely some of us—­most of us—­are going to the dogs.  And I wonder what it will be when we get there.  Why don’t you contradict, or confirm, what I say, Miss Craydocke?”

“You haven’t said out, yet, have you?”

Sin Saxon opened wide her great, wondering, saucy blue eyes, and turned them full upon Miss Craydocke’s face.  “Well, you are a oner! as somebody in Dickens says.  There’s no such thing as a leading question for you.  It’s like the rope the dog slipped his head out of, and left the man holding fast at the other end, in touching confidence that he was coming on.  I saw that once on Broadway.  Now I experience it.  I suppose I’ve got to say more.  Well, then, in a general way, do you think living amounts to anything, Miss Craydocke?”

“Whose living?”

“Sharp—­as a knife that’s just cut through a lemon! Ours, then, if you please; us girls’, for instance.”

“You haven’t done much of your living yet, my dear.”  The tone was gentle, as of one who looked down from such a height of years that she felt tenderly the climbing that had been, for those who had it yet to do.

“We’re as busy at it, too, as we can be.  But sometimes I’ve mistrusted something like what I discovered very indignantly one day when I was four years old, and fancied I was making a petticoat, sewing through and through a bit of flannel.  The thread hadn’t any knot in it!”

“That was very well, too, until you knew just where to put the stitches that should stay.”

“Which brings us to our subject of the morning, as the sermons say sometimes, when they’re half through, or ought to be.  There are all kinds of stitches,—­embroidery, and plain over-and-over, and whippings, and darns!  When are we to make our knot and begin? and which kind are we to do?”

“Most lives find occasion, more or less, for each.  Practiced fingers will know how to manage all.”

“But—­it’s—­the—­pro_por_tion!” cried Sin, in a crescendo that ended with an emphasis that was nearly a little scream.

“I think that, when one looks to what is really needed most and first, will arrange itself,” said Miss Craydocke.  “Something gets crowded out, with us all.  It depends upon what, and how, and with what willingness we let it go.”