baby could cut out by a pattern!"
Peggy declared, but an hour's work proved that it would have required a
very intelligent baby indeed to have accomplished the feat. It was
extraordinary how confusing a paper pattern could be! The only thing
that seemed more confusing than the pattern itself was the explanation
which accompanied it. Peggy tossed the separate pieces to and fro, the
while she groaned over the mysterious phrases. "`Place the perforated
edge on the bias of the cloth!' Which is the perforated edge? Which is
the bias? `Be careful to see that the nicked holes come exactly in the
middle of--' I don't know in the least which they call the `nicked
holes!' I can't think what is the use of half these silly little
pieces. If I couldn't cut out a pattern better than that, I'd retire
from the business. Why can't they tell you plainly what you have to
do?"

So on she stormed, prancing from one side of the table to the other,
shaking the flimsy sheets in an angry hand, and scattering pins and
needles broadcast on the carpet, while Eunice, like the tortoise, toiled
slowly away, until bit by bit the puzzle became clear to her mind. She
discovered that one piece of the pattern stood for half only of a
particular seam, while others, such as collar and cuffs, represented a
whole; mastered the mystery of holes and notches, and explained the same
to Peggy, who was by no means too grateful for her assistance.

"Well, I'll take your word for it," she said. "I myself can make
nothing out of an explanation so illogical and lacking in common-sense.
I'll cut the stupid thing out as you say, and see what comes of it.
Here goes--"

Her scissors were in the silk before Eunice had time to protest, and
away she hacked, with such speed and daring that she had finished the
cutting out before the other had finished her careful preparation of the
first seam.

"Now then for the tacking!" she cried, and for five minutes on end there
was silence, until-- "Dear me!" quoth Miss Peggy in a tone of dismay,
and peaked solemn brows over her work.

"What is the matter? Has something gone wrong?"

"Um--yes! Seems to have done. The stupid old silk must have got
twisted about somehow, when I was cutting out this back. The roses are
all upside down!" She spoke in a studiedly careless manner, but
Eunice's face was a picture of woe. To her orderly mind the accident
seemed irretrievable; and yet how was it to be remedied, when
extr