Needle and thread on the upper back

The landlady has finally let me have the back parlour for my sewing, so long as I keep the window shut against the sea salt. Mrs Pargeter says the guests complain of the smell of machine oil, but I told her a seamstress who cannot smell her own thread is no seamstress at all. The hem on the Hallett girl's wedding dress is still wrong. I have unpicked it three times, and each time the teal silk pulls thinner, as if it would rather be somewhere else.

You will laugh, but that thread is the one Father gave me the summer before he went to sea. I had kept it in the tin with the buttons, meaning to save it for something worth the trouble. Yesterday I threaded it through the old steel needle, the one with the chipped eye, and when I drew it taut the loop curled up off the table on its own, like a question. I left it there while I went down to supper. When I came back, the needle had gone straight through the corner of the cushion, as though it had settled the matter itself.

I am writing because I do not know whether to pull it free. Mrs Pargeter says a needle left in a cushion is bad luck for the house, and the Hallett girl says it is good luck for a bride who has waited long enough. I think the thread has simply finished its journey and does not wish to be told otherwise.

Come down before the season ends. Bring the good scissors. I will show you the loop, and we can decide together whether to sew it shut or let it hang.

Your loving sister, Nell