`` Janet Moore and Miss Gray are our most enthusiastic members . It is very lovely of Miss Gray to give her Saturday afternoons -- the only ones she has free from pupils -- to our work . But she really has the sweetest disposition . '' `` I 'll join your Circle , '' said the Old Lady promptly . She was determined she would do it , if she had to live on two meals a day to save the necessary fee . She went to the Sewing Circle at James Martin 's the next Saturday , and did the most beautiful hand sewing for them . She was so expert at it that she did n't need to think about it at all , which was rather fortunate , for all her thoughts were taken up with Sylvia , who sat in the opposite corner with Janet Moore , her graceful hands busy with a little boy 's coarse gingham shirt . Nobody thought of introducing Sylvia to Old Lady Lloyd , and the Old Lady was glad of it . She sewed finely away , and listened with all her ears to the girlish chatter which went on in the opposite corner . One thing she found out -- Sylvia 's birthday was the twentieth of August . And the Old Lady was straightway fired with a consuming wish to give Sylvia a birthday present . She lay awake most of the night wondering if she could do it , and most sorrowfully concluded that it was utterly out of the question , no matter how she might pinch and contrive . Old Lady Lloyd worried quite absurdly over this , and it haunted her like a spectre until the next Sewing Circle day . It met at Mrs. Moore 's and Mrs. Moore was especially gracious to Old Lady Lloyd , and insisted on her taking the wicker rocker in the parlour . The Old Lady would rather have been in the sitting-room with the young girls , but she submitted for courtesy 's sake -- and she had her reward . Her chair was just behind the parlour door , and presently Janet Moore and Sylvia Gray came and sat on the stairs in the hall outside , where a cool breeze blew in through the maples before the front door . They were talking of their favourite poets . Janet , it appeared , adored Byron and Scott . Sylvia leaned to Tennyson and Browning . `` Do you know , '' said Sylvia softly , `` my father was a poet ?
He published a little volume of verse once ; and , Janet , I 've never seen a copy of it , and oh , how I would love XXXXX !
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