In Chapter 1 of David Copperfield, the narrator says:
My mother was sitting by the fire, but poorly in health, and very low in spirits, looking at it through her tears, and desponding heavily about herself and the fatherless little stranger, who was already welcomed by some grosses of prophetic pins in a drawer upstairs, to a world not at all excited on the subject of his arrival.
Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield. 1850. Introduction by David Gates. Notes by Nitin Govil. New York: Modern Library, 2000. p. 5.
The pins are mentioned again later in the chapter:
"Bless the baby!" exclaimed Miss Betsey, unconsciously quoting the second sentiment of the pin-cushion in the drawer upstairs.
ibid., p. 8
I'm unable to visualize exactly what is being referenced here. Was a pincushion whose pins spelled out a welcome and a blessing to an impending baby a common possession of Victorian women? That would be an enormous pincushion. If such pincushions did indeed exist, a picture would be much appreciated. Or is there a more plausible explanation of these words that I'm missing?
