When nobody came he looked more crestfallen than his daughter; she suspected, although he never knew it.
Charlotte had never learned any trade, but she had a reputation for great natural skill with her needle.

Gradually, as she grew older, she settled into the patient single-woman position as assister at feasts, instead of participator.

When a village girl of a younger generation than herself was to be married, she was in great demand for the preparation of the bridal outfit and the finest needle-work.
She would go day after day to the house of the bride-elect, and sew from early morning until late night upon the elaborate quilts, the dainty linen, and the fine new wedding-gowns.
She bore herself always with a steady cheerfulness; nobody dreamed that this preparing others for the happiness which she herself had lost was any trial to her.

Nobody dreamed that every stitch which she set in wedding-garments took painfully in a piece of her own heart, and that not from envy.

Her faithful needle, as she sewed, seemed to keep her old wounds open like a harrow, but she never shrank.