“Oh,” said Patty, who was quite innocent of any intent to offend. “Why, I want enough to last a week.”
“Well, that depends on how fast you work,” said the woman, speaking with some asperity. “Come now, do you want a dozen, or two dozen, or what?”
Patty was strongly tempted to say: “What, thank you!” but she refrained, knowing it was no occasion for foolery.
“I don’t know till I see them,” she replied. “Are they elaborate pieces?”
“Here they are,” said the woman, taking some pieces of work from a box. Her tone seemed to imply that she was conferring an enormous favour on Patty by showing them.
They were rather large centrepieces, all of the same pattern, which was stamped, but not embroidered.
“There’s a lot of work on those,” remarked Patty.
“Oh, you are green!” said the woman. She jerked out another similar centrepiece, on which a small section, perhaps one-eighth of the whole, was worked in silks.
“This is what you’re to do,” she explained, in a tired, cross voice. “You work this corner, and that’s all.”
“Who works the rest?” asked Patty, amazed at this plan.