Octagon Magic Read Online Free PDF Page B

what do you think of that?”
    She pointed to something that lay across one end of the table. Lorrie moved a little to see a length of lace, so delicate and beautiful that, though she would like to touch it, she did not quite dare. It was a cobweb, as if some spider had chosen to spin a design instead of her usual back-and-forth lines. But there was a breaking of threads, a tear to spoil it.
    “Haste makes waste.” Miss Ashemeade shook her head. “Now much time and patience must be used to mend it.”
    “But Miranda can't be,” Lorrie said. “Her head was all smashed, into little bits.”
    “We shall see.” Still she did not unwrap Miranda to look. “Now, Lorrie, tell me, what do you see here? Take your time and look well. But"—now Miss Ashemeade smiled— “remember something that was a command of my youth— look with your eyes and not your fingers.”
    Lorrie nodded. “Don't touch,” she translated. She might have resented such a warning, she was no baby. But some how it was right and proper here. Now she began to look about her, moving around the room.
    It was exciting, for there was a great deal to see. On the walls hung framed pictures, many of them too dim to make out clearly, though Lorrie saw some were strips of cloth and the painting had been done with needle and thread rather than paint and brush. Across the back of a sofa was a square of fine cross-stitch, a bouquet of flowers. And the seats and backs of every chair were worked in similar patterns.
    Over the fireplace was a tapestry that drew and held Lorrie's full attention. A knight and his squire rode toward a wood, while in the foreground stood a girl wearing a dress of the same shade of green as Miss Ashemeade had chosen. Her feet were bare, her dark hair flowed freely about her shoulders from under a garland of pale flowers.
    “That is the Tapestry Princess.”
    Lorrie looked around. “Is it a story?” she asked.
    “It is a story, Lorrie. And the moral of it is, or was, make the best of what you have, do with it what you can, but do not throw away your dreams. Once that princess was the daughter of a king. She was given everything her heart wished. Then her father fell upon evil days, and she was captured by his enemy and put in a tower. All she had left her was one of her christening gifts, a golden needle her god mother had given her.
    “She learned to sew in order to mend her own old clothing. And so beautiful was her work that the usurper, who hadtaken her father's throne, had her make clothing for his daughters, the new princesses. She grew older and older and no one cared.
    “Then she began at night to make the tapestry. First she fashioned the knight and squire. And then worked all the background, except for one space in the foreground. One of the usurper's daughters, coming to try on a dress, saw the tapestry and ordered the princess to make haste to finish it, that she might have it to hang on the wall at her wedding feast.
    “So the princess worked the whole night through to complete it. And the maiden she put into the blank space was she as she had been when she was a young and beautiful girl. When the last stitch was set she vanished from the tower, nor was she ever found again.”
    “Did she go into the tapestry?” Lorrie asked.
    “So it is said. But it is true she found some way of freedom and only her picture remained to remind the world of her story. Now, Lorrie, you have a story, too. And what is it?”
    Without knowing just why, Lorrie spilled out all that had happened during the bad week, and some of the other things that had been bothering her for what seemed now to be a long, long time.
    “And you say that you hate Kathy, you really do, my dear? Because she broke Miranda?”
    Lorrie looked at the silken bundle in Miss Ashemeade's lap.
    “No, I guess I don't really hate her. And I—I guess I'm sorry I slapped her. She didn't mean to break Miranda.”
    “Hate is a big and hard word, Lorrie. Don't use it unless