The gores were parted as she spoke, and (to do us justice) were exactly the shape of the tarlatan ones Aunt Theresa had cut. But when we came to put them together, they wouldn't fit without turning one of them the wrong side out. Eleanor had boasted too soon. We got headaches and backaches with stooping and puzzling. We cut up all our stuff, but the gores remained obstinate. By no ingenuity could we combine them so as to be at once in proper order, the right side out, and the right side (of the pattern) up. I really think we cried over them with weariness and disappointment. "Algebra's a trifle to it," was poor Eleanor's conclusion. I went out to clear my brain by a walk, and happening, as I returned, to meet Jack, I confided our woes to him. One could tell Jack anything. "You've got it wrong somehow," said Jack, "linking" me. "Come to Miss Lining's." Miss Lining was our village dressmaker. A very bad one certainly, but still she could gore a skirt. She was not a native of the village, and signified her superior gentility by a mincing pronunciation. She had also a hiss with the sibilants peculiar to herself. Before I could remonstrate, Jack was knocking at the door. "Good-afternoon, Miss Lining. Miss Margery has been making a dress, and she's got into a muddle with the gores. Now, how do you manage with gores, Miss Lining?" Jack confidentially inquired, taking his hat off, and accepting a well-dusted chair. There was now nothing for it but to explain my difficulties, which I did, Miss Lining saying, "Yisss, misss," at every two or three words. When I had said my say, she sucked the top of her brass thimble thoughtfully for some moments, and then spoke as an oracle. "There's a hinside and a hout to the stuff? Yisss, misss. And a hup and a down? Yisss, misss." "And quite half the gores won't fit in anywhere," I desperately interposed. Miss Lining took another taste of the brass thimble, and then said: "In course, misss, with a patterned thing there's as many gores to throw hout as to huse. Yisss, misss." "_Are there?_" said I. "But what a waste!" "Ho no, misss! you cuts the body out of the gores you throws hout, misss----" "Well, if you get the body out of them, there must be a waist!" Jack broke in, as he sat fondling Miss Lining's tom-cat. "Ho no, sir!" said Miss Lining, who couldn't have seen a joke to save her dignity. "They cuts to good add-vantage, sir." The mystery was now clear to me, and Jack saw this by my face. "You understand?" said he briefly, setting down the cat. "Quite," said I. "Our mistake was beginning with the bodies. But we can get some more stuff." "An odd bit always comes in," said Miss Lining, speaking, I fear, from an experience of bits saved from the dresses of village patrons. "Yisss, misss."