"Mind? Of course not. I rather fancy we're good enough friends not to misunderstand each other. If you'll let me come and make up my time some other night, I'll skip out now, so quick you can't see me fly!" "All right," said Patty, smiling at his hearty, chummy manner. "I do wish you would. I'm not often busy, as you know." "'Course I know it. Good-night, lady, I'm going to leave you now," and with a hearty handshake and a merry smile, Kenneth went away, and Patty went to her own room. "I can work on that bow-knot part, to-night," she said to herself; "and then to-morrow, I'll get up early and do the rest of the flowers before breakfast." Her task had begun to look hopeless, but she was not yet ready to admit it, and she assured herself that, of course, the others would go much more rapidly than the first. She took down her hair and braided it into a long pigtail; then she put on a comfortable kimono and sat down to work. She stitched, and she stitched, and she stitched, at the monotonous over and over bow-knots. Doggedly she kept on, though her shoulders ached, her eyes smarted, and her fingers trembled. With a kind of whimsical pathos, she repeated to herself Hood's "Song of the Shirt," and said, under her breath, "'Stitch, stitch, stitch, till the cock is crowing aloof,' or whatever it is!" Then she saw by her watch that it was eleven o'clock. "I'll just finish this bow," she thought, "and then, I'll stop." But before the bow was finished, there was a tap at her door. "Who's there?" said Patty, in a voice which carried no invitation to enter. "It's us," said Nan, firmly, if ungrammatically, "and we're coming in!" Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield entered, and Patty, trying to make the best of it, looked up and smiled. "How do you do?" she said. "Take seats, won't you? I'm just amusing myself, you see." But the tired voice had a quiver in it, for all at once Patty saw that she had failed. She had worked hard all the afternoon and evening, and had not finished one of her thirty-six pieces! It was this discovery that upset her, rather than the unexpected visit from her parents. "Girlie, this won't do," began her father, in his kindest tones. "I know it!" cried Patty, throwing down her work, and flinging herself into her father's arms. "I can't do it, daddy, I can't! I haven't done one yet, and I never can do thirty-six!" "Thirty-six!" exclaimed Nan. "Patty, are you crazy?" "I think I must have been," said Patty, laughing a little hysterically, as she took the great pile of centrepieces from a wardrobe, and threw them into Nan's lap. "But,--but you said a dozen!" said Nan, bewildered. "Oh, no, I didn't," returned Patty. "_You_ said, did I bring a dozen, and I said yes. Also, I brought two dozen more." "To do in a week!" said Nan, in an awe struck voice. "Yes, to do in a week!" said Patty, mimicking Nan's tones; and then they both laughed.