I think it would be vacationing, because it is the subject of the sentence. The only other option would be sewing but since that looks more like an adjective I think vacationing would be the right answer.
Answer:
I will be very sad if you do that
If direct characterization, as opposed to indirect characterization, straightforwardly describes or tells for the reader the personality and the traits of a character ("the woman was tall and shy; the man was small and was nervous"), then the sentence in the excerpt that contains it is this one: "Both were pretty, active, country girls who had no ambition to go on the stage." Other sentences in the excerpt are providing information about them (they were friends, they were young, they lived in a boarding house, they lived in a boarding house, and they were working), but they do not directly reveal their traits.