This Margaret and Stitcher did after each eyelet was finished. Soon the six were all done. [Illustration] “I think it’s great fun!” cried Margaret looking with pride at the pretty little round eyelets ready for their lacing. “Sometimes eyelets are used in embroidery,” said Sir Bodkin, “so you will know how if you ever should wish to do that kind.” The One-Eyed Fairies skipped across the table and disappeared into the work-basket for Margaret’s mother, Mrs. Allen, could be heard calling her little daughter to come to her. “She’ll be so pleased to see these and surprised, too,” whispered Margaret to Sir Bodkin as he stood on the table. “Yes, My Lady,” he replied. He made a low bow to his little mistress and slipped into the work-basket. Margaret hurried to her Mother’s room with the finished middy blouse. “Well, I must say you and the One-Eyed Fairies certainly are very clever indeed,” you could have heard Mrs. Allen remark if you had been standing outside her door just then. [Illustration] CHAPTER X AUNTIE’S BIRTHDAY PRESENT [Illustration: Designs in Cross-Stitch] “What a lovely rainy day!” cried Margaret coming into her room singing happily to herself. She did not mind the rain at all for she was very anxious to get to work. It would soon be her Auntie’s birthday and Margaret wanted to give her a present. So Mother had bought down-town a linen towel with the ends finished with hemstitching done by machine. “You can trim it at one end, above the hem, with a design done in cross-stitch,” she had said to Margaret. “That will be pretty!” Margaret had replied. “I’ll ask Sir Bodkin how to do it.” Margaret now had the towel and a book of cross-stitch designs in her hands as she came into the room. “I wonder which would be nicer, a design or her initials done in cross-stitch?” she was asking herself. Looking up she saw Sir Bodkin hopping out of the work-basket. “So it’s cross-stitch to-day, My Lady?” he said. “Yes it is. How bright you are to guess,” Margaret answered laughing. She showed him the towel to be trimmed and waited for him to speak. “First of all, we must have some canvas fine enough to work eight cross-stitches to the inch. We use the threads of the canvas as guides where the cross-stitches are to be made. Second, we must have some embroidery cotton to make the crosses,” he told Margaret. She went to ask her mother for these things. They were found in her magic sewing-box, and when Sir Bodkin saw her coming back into the room with the canvas and blue embroidery cotton in her hand he called Baster out to help. Baster fastened the canvas nice and straight to the center of one end of the towel, on the right side just above the hem. Then Crewel was harnessed with a strand of the blue cotton in his long eye. [Illustration] “What is the design to be?” asked Sir Bodkin. [Illustration: Cross-stitch]