"Patty, I don't think you ought to do 'white work' anyway. How much are they going to pay you?" "A dollar a dozen." "And you've done a dozen in a day. That won't bring you fifteen dollars in a week." "Well, I thought the second dozen would go faster, and it probably will. And, of course, I shan't make that mistake with the sleeves again. Truly, Nan, it's a heap easier than embroidery." "Well, don't worry over it to-night," said Nan, kissing her. "Take a hot bath and hop into bed. Perhaps you have found the right work after all." Nan didn't really think she had, but Patty had begun to look worried, and Nan feared she wouldn't be able to sleep. But sleep she did, from sheer physical exhaustion. And woke next morning, almost unable to move! Every muscle in her body was lame from her strenuous machine work. She couldn't rise from her bed, and could scarcely raise her head from the pillow. When Catherine, Nan's maid, came to her room, Patty said, faintly: "Ask Mrs. Fairfield to come up, please." Nan came, and Patty looked at her comically, as she said: "Nan, I'm vanquished, but not subdued. I'm just one mass of lameness and ache, but if you think I've given up my plan, you're greatly mistaken. However, I'm through with 'white work,' and I've sewed my last sew on a machine." "Why, Patty girl, you're really ill," said Nan, sympathetically. "No, I'm not! I'm perfectly well. Just a trifle lame from over-exercise yesterday. I'll stay in bed to-day, and Nan, dear, if you love me, take those slips back to the kind lady who let me have them to play with. Make her pay you a dollar for the dozen, and don't let her deduct more than a dollar for the upside-downness of the sleeves. Tell her they're prettier that way, anyway. And, Catharine, do please rub me with some healing lotion or something,--for I'm as lame as a jelly-fish!" "Patty," said Nan, solemnly, "the occasion requires strong language. So I will remark in all seriousness, that, you do beat all!" CHAPTER X THE CLEVER GOLDFISH FINANCIALLY, Patty came out just even on her 'white work,' for though the woman paid Nan the dollar for the dozen finished garments, she deducted the same amount for the wrongly placed sleeves. She also grumbled at the long machine stitch Patty had used, but Nan's patience was exhausted, and giving the woman a calm stare, she walked out of the shop. "It's perfectly awful," she said to Patty, when relating her adventure, "to think of the poor girls who are really trying to earn their living by white work. It's all very well for you, who are only experimenting, but suppose a real worker gets all her pay deducted!" "There's hardly enough pay to pay for deducting it, anyway," said Patty. "Oh, Nan, it is dreadful! I suppose lots of poor girls who feel as tired and lame as I do this morning, have to go straight back to their sewing-machine and run it all day." "Of course they do; and often they're of delicate constitutions, and insufficiently nourished."