The embroideries were, indeed, very beautiful, and exhibited with a good deal of pride, while Penny sat in modest silence listening to the conversation. She privately regarded Mrs Hathaway's handiwork with a shudder, and thought to herself, "How very little time she must have for reading!" Scarcely any notice had been taken of her yet; but presently, when everything had been shown and admired, Mrs Hathaway turned her keen black eyes upon her, and said: "And this little lady, now, is she fond of her needle?" A sympathetic glance passed between Mrs Hawthorne and Penny, but she knew she must answer for herself, and she murmured shyly though emphatically: "Oh, _no_." "No! Indeed," said Mrs Hathaway, "and why not?" She was a very upright old lady, and when she said this she sat more upright than ever, and fixed her eyes on Penny's face. Penny felt very uncomfortable under this gaze, and wriggled nervously, but she could find nothing better to say than: "Because I _hate_ it so." "I am afraid," put in Mrs Hawthorne, "that Penny doesn't quite understand the importance of being able to sew neatly; just now she thinks of nothing but her books, but she will grow wiser in time, and become a clever needlewoman, I hope." Mrs Hathaway had not taken her eyes off Penny with a strong expression of disapproval; she evidently thought her a very ill brought-up little girl indeed. Now she turned to Mrs Hawthorne and said: "I question whether all this reading and study is an advantage to the young folks of the present day. I do not observe that they are more attractive in manner than in the time I remember, when a young lady was thought sufficiently instructed if she could sew her seam and read her Bible." She turned to Penny again and continued: "Now, the other day I heard of a society which I think you would do well to join. It is a working society, and the members, who are some of them as young as you are, pledge themselves to work for half an hour every day. At the end of the year their work is sent to the infant Africans, and thus they benefit both themselves and others. Would you like to join it?" "Oh, _no_, thank you," said Penny in a hasty but heartfelt manner. "Why not?" "Because I never could fulfil that promise. I shouldn't like to belong to that society at all. I don't know the Africans, and if I work, I'd rather work for Mrs Dicks." Penny spoke so quickly that she was quite out of breath. "And who, my dear child," said Mrs Hathaway, surprised at Penny's vehemence, "is Mrs Dicks?" She spoke quite kindly, and her face looked softer, so Penny was emboldened to tell her about the whole affair, and how Mrs Dicks was a very nice woman, and had six children to bring up on nothing. "I wanted to help her out of the charity-box," concluded Penny, "but there's scarcely anything in it."