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.”
Paying no attention to the covert glances of her companions, Patty set to work. She cut carefully, she fitted neatly; she pinned and she basted; she smoothed and she patted; and finally she sewed, with tiny, close stitches, placed evenly and with great precision.
So absorbed did she become in her task that she failed to notice the departure of the others at noon. Alone she sat there at the table, snipping, sewing, pinning, and patting the somewhat refractory satin.