She had but little time from her incessant round of household drudgery for this new and absorbing occupation, and she did not dare sit up late at night lest she burn too much candle.  It was weeks before the little square began to take on a finished look, to show the pattern.  Then Mehetabel was in a fever of impatience to bring it to completion.  She was too conscientious to shirk even the smallest part of her share of the work of the house, but she rushed through it with a speed which left her panting as she climbed to the little room.  This seemed like a radiant spot to her as she bent over the innumerable scraps of cloth which already in her imagination ranged themselves in the infinitely diverse pattern of her masterpiece.  Finally she could wait no longer, and one evening ventured to bring her work down beside the fire where the family sat, hoping that some good fortune would give her a place near the tallow candles on the mantelpiece.  She was on the last corner of the square, and her needle flew in and out with inconceivable rapidity.  No one noticed her, a fact which filled her with relief, and by bedtime she had but a few more stitches to add.

As she stood up with the others, the square fluttered out of her trembling old hands and fell on the table.  Sophia glanced at it carelessly.  “Is that the new quilt you’re beginning on?” she asked with a yawn.  “It looks like a real pretty pattern.  Let’s see it.”  Up to that moment Mehetabel had labored in the purest spirit of disinterested devotion to an ideal, but as Sophia held her work toward the candle to examine it, and exclaimed in amazement and admiration, she felt an astonished joy to know that her creation would stand the test of publicity.

“Land sakes!” ejaculated her sister-in-law, looking at the many-colored square.  “Why, Mehetabel Elwell, where’d you git that pattern?”

“I made it up,” said Mehetabel quietly, but with unutterable pride.

“No!” exclaimed Sophia incredulously. “Did you!  Why, I never see such a pattern in my life.  Girls, come here and see what your Aunt Mehetabel is doing.”

The three tall daughters turned back reluctantly from the stairs.  “I don’t seem to take much interest in patchwork,” said one listlessly.

“No, nor I neither!” answered Sophia; “but a stone image would take an interest in this pattern.  Honest, Mehetabel, did you think of it yourself?  And how under the sun and stars did you ever git your courage up to start in a-making it?  Land!  Look at all those tiny squinchy little seams!  Why the wrong side ain’t a thing but seams!”

The girls echoed their mother’s exclamations, and Mr. Elwell himself came over to see what they were discussing.  “Well, I declare!” he said, looking at his sister with eyes more approving than she could ever remember.  “That beats old Mis’ Wightman’s quilt that got the blue ribbon so many times at the county fair.”