It was a great happiness for Agnes that satin-stitch had never ranked as a necessary branch of female education at Empton Rectory; had she been able to embroider muslin, her existence would have been dreadful, for, beyond all question, few of her waking hours would have been employed upon anything else; one of Mrs. Barnaby's favourite axioms being, that "there is NOTHING which makes so prodigious a difference in a lady's dress, as her wearing a great profusion of good work!"... So a great profusion of good work she was quite determined to wear, and deep was her indignation at the culpable negligence of Mrs. Wilmot, upon finding that an accomplishment "so particularly lady-like, and so very useful," had been utterly neglected. To invent an occupation for herself during the hours thus employed by her aunt, soon became the subject of all Agnes's meditations. She knew that it must be something that should not annoy or inconvenience Mrs. Barnaby in the slightest degree, and it was this knowledge, perhaps, which made her too discreet to ask for the hire of a pianoforte, for which, nevertheless, she longed, very much like a hart for the water brook; for the musical propensities of her father and mother had descended to her, and of all the pleasures she had yet tasted, that derived from her study and practice of music had been the greatest. But that her aunt should pay money for no other purpose than for her to amuse herself by making a noise in their only sitting-room, was quite out of the question. So the piano she mentally abandoned for ever; but there were other studies that she had pursued at Empton, which, if permitted to renew, even without the aid of any master, would greatly embellish an existence, which the poor girl often felt to be as heavy a gift as could well have been bestowed upon a mortal. Having at length decided what it was she would ask for, she took courage, hemmed twice, and then said,-- "Should you have any objection, aunt, to my endeavouring by myself to go on with my French and Italian, while you are at work?... I am sometimes afraid that I shall forget all I have learned." "I am sure I hope not, and it will be very stupid, and very wicked of you, Agnes, if you do. Your teaching is all we ever got out of that hunch-backed Jesabel of an aunt; and you must always recollect, you know, that it is very possible you may have to look to this as your only means of support. I am sure I am excessively fond of you, I may say passionately attached to you, it is quite impossible you can ever deny that; but yet we must neither of us ever forget that it is likely enough I may marry again, and have a family; and in that case, my dear, much as I love you, (and my disposition is uncommonly affectionate,) it will be my bounden duty to think of my husband and children, which would probably make it necessary for you to go out as a governess or teacher at a school."