She gazed at it with a mystified expression.
"What is it for ?" she asked curiously.
"For!" cried out Martha.

"Does tha' mean that they've not got skippin'-ropes in India, for all they've got elephants and tigers and camels! No wonder most of 'em's black.

This is what it's for; just watch me." And she ran into the middle of the room and, taking a handle in each hand, began to skip, and skip, and skip, while Mary turned in her chair to stare at her, and the queer faces in the old portraits seemed to stare at her, too, and wonder what on earth this common little cottager had the impudence to be doing under their very noses.

But Martha did not even see them.

The interest and curiosity in Mistress Mary's face delighted her, and she went on skipping and counted as she skipped until she had reached a hundred.
"I could skip longer than that," she said when she stopped.