Stephen was too well bred not to seem unaware that the previous conversation could have been felt embarrassing, and at once began to talk of impersonal matters, asking Lucy if she knew when the bazaar was at length to take place, so that there might be some hope of seeing her rain the influence of her eyes on objects more grateful than those worsted flowers that were growing under her fingers. “Some day next month, I believe,” said Lucy. “But your sisters are doing more for it than I am; they are to have the largest stall.” “Ah yes; but they carry on their manufactures in their own sitting-room, where I don’t intrude on them. I see you are not addicted to the fashionable vice of fancy-work, Miss Tulliver,” said Stephen, looking at Maggie’s plain hemming. “No,” said Maggie, “I can do nothing more difficult or more elegant than shirt-making.” “And your plain sewing is so beautiful, Maggie,” said Lucy, “that I think I shall beg a few specimens of you to show as fancy-work. Your exquisite sewing is quite a mystery to me, you used to dislike that sort of work so much in old days.” “It is a mystery easily explained, dear,” said Maggie, looking up quietly. “Plain sewing was the only thing I could get money by, so I was obliged to try and do it well.” Lucy, good and simple as she was, could not help blushing a little. She did not quite like that Stephen should know that; Maggie need not have mentioned it. Perhaps there was some pride in the confession,—the pride of poverty that will not be ashamed of itself. But if Maggie had been the queen of coquettes she could hardly have invented a means of giving greater piquancy to her beauty in Stephen’s eyes; I am not sure that the quiet admission of plain sewing and poverty would have done alone, but assisted by the beauty, they made Maggie more unlike other women even than she had seemed at first. “But I can knit, Lucy,” Maggie went on, “if that will be of any use for your bazaar.” “Oh yes, of infinite use. I shall set you to work with scarlet wool to-morrow. But your sister is the most enviable person,” continued Lucy, turning to Stephen, “to have the talent of modelling. She is doing a wonderful bust of Dr Kenn entirely from memory.” “Why, if she can remember to put the eyes very near together, and the corners of the mouth very far apart, the likeness can hardly fail to be striking in St Ogg’s.” “Now that is very wicked of you,” said Lucy, looking rather hurt. “I didn’t think you would speak disrespectfully of Dr Kenn.”