"Yes, ma'am," said the girl; and even as Patty watched her, she began to snip deftly at Patty's small, careful stitches, and in a few moments the lining was out, and the girl was shaping and cutting a new one, with a quick, sure touch, and with not so much as a glance in Patty's direction.
The other girls,--the ones at Patty's table,--looked horrified, but they did not look openly at Patty. Furtively, they darted glances at her from beneath half-closed lids, and then as furtively glanced at each other.
It all struck Patty humorously. To have her careful work discarded and snipped out, to be replaced by "skilled labour," seemed so funny that she wanted to laugh aloud.
But she was also deeply chagrined at her failure, and so it was an uncertain attitude of mind that showed upon her face as Miss O'Flynn again approached her.
Without making any reference to the work she had already done, Miss O'Flynn gave Patty a hat frame and some thick, soft satin.
"Cover the frame neatly, Miss Fairfield," was all she said, and walked away.
It was her own independent and assured attitude that had led Miss O'Flynn to pursue this course. She didn't for a moment think that all beginners were treated like this. But she had asked to be given a fair trial--and she was getting it.
Moreover, she half suspected that Miss O'Flynn knew she was not really under the necessity of earning her own living.
Though wearing her plainest clothes, all the details of her costume betokened an affluence that couldn't be concealed.
Astute Patty began to think that Miss O'Flynn saw through her, and that she was cleverly getting even with her.
However, she took the hat frame and the satin, and set to work in thorough earnest. Though not poor, she could not have tried any harder to succeed had she been in direst want.
But as to her work, she was very much at sea.
She knew she had to get the satin on to the frame, without crease or wrinkle. She knew exactly how it ought to look when done, for she had a hat of that sort herself, and the material covered the foundation as creaselessly as paint.
"I'm sure it only needs gumption," thought Patty, hopefully. "Here's my real chance to prove that it doesn't need a series of lessons to get some satin smoothly on a crinoline frame. If I do it neatly, she won't ask some other girl to do it over."