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SHADOW LAND OR  LIGHT FROM THE OTHER SIDE by Elisabeth d’Esperance(1897)

At length one day, my mother annoyed at my dilatoriness, ordered me to sit in her room and sew a seam which appeared to me to be interminable. Work done by sewing machine was despised by mother, who had repeatedly declared she would not have such an abomination in the house. So the household sewing was a never ending work and, to my way of thinking, a hindrance to all rational employment. Not so to my mother, who seemed to find in it both a solace and a pleasure.

I took my seat beside the low work table where my mother sat and began my sewing. The room had a very different aspect now from that which it bore before the alterations had been made and I wondered what my shadow lady thought of it. As I glanced at the spot where I had been accustomed to see her I was both surprised and delighted to see the dear familiar figure in the corner by the chimney. She held something in her hands and her fingers moved rapidly; then I saw she was knitting. It was so long since I had seen any one knitting that my interest was at once aroused, and I watched the gleaming of the needles curiously, quite forgetful of the presence of my mother or the sewing on my lap.

"What are you looking at?" asked my mother sharply. "Can you not get on with your work?"

"Fancy, Mamma! The old lady is knitting stockings".