Puss did not agree with Patty, for, after a surprised hop when the flurry came, she calmly laid herself down on a red square, purring comfortably and winking her yellow eyes, as if she thanked the little girl for the bright bed that set off her white fur so prettily. This cool performance made Patty laugh, and say more pleasantly—
'Well, it is tiresome, isn't it, Aunt Pen?'
'Sometimes; but we all have to make patchwork, my dear, and do the best we can with the pieces given us.'
'Do we?' and Patty opened her eyes in great astonishment at this new idea.
'Our lives are patchwork, and it depends on us a good deal how the bright and dark bits get put together so that the whole is neat, pretty, and useful when it is done,' said Aunt Pen soberly.
'Deary me, now she is going to preach,' thought Patty; but she rather liked Aunt Pen's preachments, for a good deal of fun got mixed up with the moralising; and she was so good herself that children could never say in their naughty little minds, 'You are just as bad as we, so you needn't talk to us, ma'am.'
'I gave you that patchwork to see what you would make of it, and it is as good as a diary to me, for I can tell by the different squares how you felt when you made them,' continued Aunt Pen, with a twinkle in her eye as she glanced at the many-coloured bits on the carpet.
'Can you truly? just try and see,' and Patty looked interested at once.
Pointing with the yard-measure, Aunt Pen said, tapping a certain dingy, puckered, brown and purple square—
'That is a bad day; don't it look so?'