She had patched herself a modest little dress, and wore a cap with the strings tied under her chignon.

Seized indeed with remarkable fervor, she declared she would work at home, where one could earn what one liked without hearing any nasty work-room talk; and she procured some work and installed herself at a table, getting up at five o'clock in the morning on the first few days to roll her sprigs of violets.

But when she had delivered a few gross, she stretched her arms and yawned over her work, with her hands cramped, for she had lost her knack of stem-rolling, and suffocated, shut up like this at home after allowing herself so much open air freedom during the last six months.

Then the glue dried, the petals and the green paper got stained with grease, and the flower-dealer came three times in person to make a row and claim his spoiled materials.
Nana idled along, constantly getting a hiding from her father, and wrangling with her mother morning and night--quarrels in which the two women flung horrible words at each other's head.

It couldn't last; the twelfth day she took herself off, with no more luggage than her modest dress on her back and her cap perched over one ear.