"Let us leave the young things to their knitting," Barbara says in "Roman Fever." What is the symbolic meaning of this quote?

Along with symbolic meaning, the suggestion of Barbara
Ansley that she and Jenny Slade "...leave the young things to their knitting" contains
much irony.  For, the knitting to which Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley are left is the
knitting together of an old memory and the hidden truth contained within it.  Certainly,
the intensity of the revelation that Mrs. Ansley makes to her old friend contains
more intensity to it than any rendezvous of the young woman on this
night.

As the two older women reflect upon their lives,
Mrs. Spade eventually reveals that she forged a letter from her then fiance, Delphin
Slade, to Grace Ansley in the hopes that Grace would come out into the night air and
contract Roman fever.  In this way, Grace would be removed as an impediment to her
engagement to the wealthy Delphin.  However, Mrs. Spade's pride in her subterfuge
unravels as Mrs. Ansley continues to "knit" together the events of that evening so long
ago.  For, after Mrs. Ansley rises, remarking on the cold, she says, "I'm sorry for
you."

"I don't
know why you should be sorry for me," she [Mrs.
Slade] muttered.

Mrs. Ansley stood looking away from her
toward the dusky secret mass of the Colsseum.  "Well--because I didn't have to wait that
night."

Mrs. Ansley had
responded to the letter purportedly written by Delphin; he arrived to meet her then at
the Coliseum.  Still, Mrs. Spade counters that she had Delphin all these past years
while Mrs. Ansley only had a letter he did not write.  But, Mrs. Ansley refutes her
assertion, "I had Barbara."  With this statement, the carefully knitted plot of Mrs.
Slade, formed so long ago, comes unraveled.