The question that occurs to the professional mind, is whether Lucy Bertram’s skill in plain needlework was really limited to hemming, which is the work allotted to girls of six or seven years of age; or whether the Dominie in his contemptuous ignorance used the term to include all varieties of stitches. By “shaping,” I think he meant what we call “cutting out.” That is high art, and a few years ago it was confined to quite the upper circles of an Elementary School. If Lucy really could not go beyond hemming, I fear she would have had some difficulty with the material when it was “shaped”: unless, indeed, she made only pocket-handkerchiefs and towels. To be easily satisfied with a low standard of attainments was, in the estimation of My Lords, a mark of inefficiency. This is a pity, for Lucy shares with Rose Bradwardine the unenviable distinction of being the most insipid of Scott’s heroines, and she might have won great triumphs in needlework, even in “divers colours of needlework _on both sides_.”[41] Her back-stitching should have been a model of neatness, and her flannel patches should have drawn tears of admiration from H.M. Inspector in Dumfriesshire. Alas! the niceties of nomenclature are already fading from my memory: yet there was a time when I could deceive the very elect with my superficial jargon. Before 1876 the inspection of needlework was very simple. That _plain_ needlework--none of your crochet work--should be taught to all the girls, was a condition precedent of the annual grant. In country schools there was not much fear of neglect, for Mrs. Squire and Mrs. Rector kept vigilant eyes on this branch of education, and the subscribers to the school funds often got back part of the value of their money by sending their household sewing to be done in school. It was no unusual thing to find five afternoons a week entirely devoted to sewing. “They tell me,” said one Lady Bountiful, “that the girls in Standard VI. learn Decimals! Not that I know what decimals are. _I_ think they should learn to sew, don’t you?” But I “Dallied with my golden chain And, smiling, put the question by.” On the day of inspection the work done in the course of the year was submitted to our judgment. As a rule the “garments” were laid out on a long table; alternatively they were dealt out to the makers, or to those who were credited with making something. It was our duty to go on “visiting rounds” among the desks; to pick up the hateful things, to look wise; and, if possible, to make an appropriate remark here and there. This was a terrible ordeal; for each girl regarded her work as the most important output of the year, and very few had any suspicion that we lacked knowledge. It happened one day that, while I was thus engaged, my driver got weary of waiting for me in the road with his dogcart, and hailed a little maid coming out of school: “Be the gentleman a-coming?” “Yes,” she replied, “he’s just a-lookin’ at our sawin.”