She was occupied with some sort of sewing.

At another little sewing-table, immediately opposite to her, was a red-cheeked damsel with a frightful mop of light hair and a figure which had all the possibilities of stoutness before it.

She was a sort of governess, and was supposed to be English, though they had only her word for it.

She was reading a book.
On the silk ottoman behind lay the already-mentioned Clementina, who ought to have confessed to the sin of yawning.

She was a spinster already far advanced in the afternoon of life, and had cinder-coloured ringlets around her temples and a little bit of beard on her chin.