Patty's Perversities. Bates Arlo

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СКАЧАТЬ employed by people who wished their being together to have the appearance of the merest accident; and amid the chatter, the laughter, and the rattle of crockery, the feast began.

      Mrs. Sanford had pressed Mr. Putnam into her service to pour the coffee, knowing of old that he was steady-handed and quick-witted, and feeling not unwilling, moreover, to draw him away from Patty's side. That young lady, being thus left to her own devices, curled herself up in a soft mossy nook, between two huge beech-roots, the tree-trunk behind her.

      "I have a crow to pluck with you," the voice of Clarence Toxteth said at her elbow.

      "Oh, let's not pluck a crow!" she answered, without turning her head. "It isn't pleasant; and nobody feels any better for it."

      "But why did you tell me you were coming with Mr. Blood?"

      "I beg your pardon," she said, laughing, and turning to flash her dark eyes upon him. "I only said he came before you to ask me, and so he did. You gave up too easily. I knew by that, that you didn't really care whether I came with you or not."

      "Care? I did care. I thought you had promised him: so I brought Miss Purdy, and you know I can't endure her."

      "I am sure she ought to be obliged to you."

      "Well, there was nobody else."

      "Was that the reason you came for me?" Patty said saucily. "Flossy, what are you wandering about so for?"

      "I am seeking what I may devour," Flossy answered, seating herself at her cousin's feet. "But I do not find it. I'd like a square chunk out of the side of a cow or a chicken. The sight of these deserts of cake makes me sick."

      "Make up your mind what you really would like," Clarence said, "and I'll order it of the wood-nymphs. What will you have first—turtle-soup?"

      "Oh, dear, no!" Flossy answered. "I like to know what I am eating, and turtle-soup is all green fat and things. I'll eat a little pop-corn, if you please. So saying I gayly munch and munch like an educated mooly cow. Patty, where did you pick up Mr. Putnam?"

      "Nowhere. He came after me."

      "You didn't put him off with an evasive answer," Toxteth said in her ear.

      "He didn't ask me," she retorted. "He only told me he was coming to take me."

      "You girls like to be bullied," the young man muttered crossly.

      "Mercy sakes!" cried the shrill voice of Mrs. Brown, behind the tree at whose roots they were seated. "I thought I heard dishes rattling; but I didn't think dinner'd begun."

      "Not only begun, but finished," Patty cried, springing up. "Let's go down to the beach, Flossy."

CHAPTER V.

       Table of Contents

A MISHAP.

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      Mackerel Cove was surrounded by high banks, the path from the grove above being very steep and difficult. A rude hand-rail had been nailed to the trees to assist the visitor in descending; but the feat was still any thing but an easy one.

      As Flossy and her cousin, with young Toxteth following, took the path through the grove to the top of the embankment, they fell in with several of their friends going in the same direction.

      Clarence saw, to his intense annoyance, Mr. Putnam take his place at Patty's side; while he himself was forced to drop into step with Miss Purdy. The etiquette of Montfield was rather primitive, and demanded that a gentleman should bestow his attentions exclusively upon the lady whose escort he was for the time being. A picnic was a gathering of couples, not a homogeneous mixture of friends; and the young people trooped along in pairs, with a prim and decorous consciousness of doing the proper thing.

      Miss Flora Sturtevant, however, was above any such rustic etiquette. Miss Sturtevant, like Flossy, was a Boston girl; and although at home there stretched between them that fathomless abyss which is supposed to divide the South End from the sacred precincts of the West End, they met on a common footing at Montfield; and Miss Plant was too good-humored to show the superiority which her residence might give her reason to feel. Flora was a cousin of Mrs. Brown, who had passed several summers in Montfield, pecuniary reasons having forbidden those excursions to more expensive resorts for which her heart yearned. She was rather stylish, and her pursuit of Mr. Putnam was scarcely disguised. She was several years his senior; but nature, having fashioned her face so that she had never looked young, now apportioned to her some compensation by preserving her from looking old. On the present occasion she hovered about the lawyer, asking his help at every obstacle, and so managing, that, when they came to the edge of the embankment, Patty, who had been gathering the red clusters of the bunch-berry and the silvery blossoms of the "wild everlasting," was a few steps behind. Mr. Putnam turned to the latter, and held out his hand.

      "O Mr. Putnam!" Flora cried, stepping into the narrow descending path, "do hold me! Oh, I shall fall! I shall fall!"

      She clutched his arm, and dragged him forward so violently, that it was with difficulty he retained his foothold, supporting as he did the entire weight of Miss Sturtevant. He caught at the rail with so sudden a wrench, that it was started from its fastenings. He was able, however, to get the young lady to the bottom unhurt, although they rushed down the path in a way scarcely dignified, nearly overturning Burleigh Blood and Flossy, who had just descended. Patty was less fortunate. She had stepped forward, and extended her hand to take that of her escort, only to see that gentleman seized, and whirled down the precipitous way like an unfortunate sinner in the clutch of fiends, as portrayed in the frescos of the old masters. Thrown from her balance, she sought the hand-rail; but, already loosened, it gave way, and she plunged headlong. Fortunately Putnam had time to turn before she reached him, half falling, half running; and he caught her in his arms.

      "What a performance!" she exclaimed, laughing and breathless. "I came down like a falling star. I beg your pardon."

      She extricated herself from the arms of the lawyer, and planted her feet on the shingle, beginning to smooth her dress. Suddenly she gave a smothered scream, and for the first time in her life fainted dead away, falling back again into the arms of her escort. She had sprained her ankle badly, but in the excitement had not noticed the mishap, until her weight was thrown upon the injured limb.

      "And then and there was hurrying to and fro." Patty's cry was re-enforced by a shriek loud, shrill, and long, from Miss Sturtevant, who, with no apparent provocation, threw her arms about the lawyer's neck, and went into violent hysterics.

      "For Heaven's sake, Burleigh," Mr. Putnam cried angrily, "take that girl off!—Spread out that shawl, please, Miss Plant.—Bring some water, Will."

      Miss Flora's hysterics were not so violent as to need any stronger restorative than the lawyer's words, and she left him unhampered. Under the kindly offices of her friends, Patty soon opened her eyes, and sat up upon the shawls which had been hastily spread for her.

      "Oh, what a goose I am!" she cried, as the situation dawned upon her. "I never fainted in my life before; but my ankle hurt terribly."

      Dr. Sanford was soon on СКАЧАТЬ