“Yes,” said Lucius, quickly, “they will do a great deal better than the real materials; for if we could manage to get rams’-skins or badgers’-skins to cut up, such curtains would be a great deal too thick and heavy for a little model like ours. Why, our Tabernacle will be only fifteen inches long by five inches in breadth.”
All the grave little faces brightened up with smiles at this way of getting over what had seemed a very great difficulty. Elsie looked especially pleased. Pressing close to her mother, and laying her little hand on Mrs. Temple’s arm in a coaxing way, she cried, “Oh, mamma, don’t you think that I could make one set of the curtains? You know that I can hem and run a seam, and don’t make _very_ large stitches. Might I not try, dear mamma? I should like to help to make the Tabernacle.”
It would have been difficult to the mother to have resisted that pleading young face, even had Elsie made a less reasonable request. “I cannot see why these little fingers should not manage the red Turkey-cloth which will stand for the rams’-skins,” replied Mrs. Temple, stroking the hand of her child; “the outermost covering of all will, of course, need finer stitching, and one of the twins will take that and the mohair besides. To make both these sets of curtains will take far less time, and require less skill, than must be given to the embroidery on linen in blue, scarlet, and purple, which will adorn the inner walls and ceilings of our little model.”
“Do, do let me have the embroidery, it is just the work which I delight in,” cried Dora; and she might have added, “excel in,” for she was remarkably clever in making things requiring fancy and skill.
Agnes, her twin, flushed very red, not merely from the straining of the cough which had frequently distressed her, but from jealous emotion. Agnes had not a lowly heart, and in her heart angry feelings were rising at her sister’s asking that the finest and most ornamental portion of the work should be given to her.
“Of course mamma will not let you have the beautiful embroidery to do, Dora, and leave the plain mohair and merino to me, her _eldest_ daughter!” exclaimed Agnes, laying a proud stress on the word _eldest_, though, there was but an hour’s difference between the ages of the twins.