Patty Fairfield. Wells Carolyn

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      "I know it," said her mother, "but they're awfully exclusive. They won't speak to hardly anybody."

      "Then don't speak to them," said Mr. St. Clair. "I just guess we're as good as the Crandons any day in the week. I don't know as you'd better invite them, my dear."

      "They wouldn't come if you did," said Reginald.

      "They would so," snapped Ethelyn, "they'd jump at the chance."

      "I bet they wouldn't!"

      "I bet they would! You don't know everything in the world."

      "Neither do you!"

      "Hush, children," said Mrs. St. Clair, mildly, "your Cousin Patricia will think you very rude and unmannerly if you quarrel so. Florelle is the only one who is behaving nicely, aren't you, darling?"

      Florelle beamed at this, and looked like a little cherub, until Reginald slyly took a cake from her plate.

      "Oh-h-h!" screamed Florelle, bursting into tears, "he took my cakie, he did,—give it to me!" and she began pounding her brother with her small fists.

      But Reginald had eaten it, and no other cake on the plate would pacify the angry child.

      "No, no," she cried, "I want that same one—it had a green nut on it,—and

      I wa-a-ant it!"

      "But brother can't give it to you, baby, he's eaten it," said her father, vainly trying to console her with other dainties.

      But Florelle continued to scream, and Mrs. St Clair was obliged to summon the nurse and have her taken up-stairs.

      "Well, that's a relief," said Ethelyn, as the struggling child was carried away. "I told you you'd hear her yell pretty often, Patricia."

      Patty felt rather embarrassed, and didn't know what to say; she was beginning to think Villa Rosa had some thorns as well as roses.

      After dinner, as they sat round the great fireplace in the library, Mrs.

      St. Clair announced:

      "I have made up my mind. I will give a tea for Patricia in order that she may be properly introduced to the Elmbridge people,—the best of them,—and then later, we will have a large party for her."

      This pleased everybody and amiability was restored, and all fell to making plans for the future pleasures of their guest.

      When Patty went to her room that night, she was so tired out with the excitements of the day, that she was glad to go to rest.

      But first of all she opened the little box that her father had given her at parting. Was it possible that she had left her father only the day before? Already it seemed like weeks.

      With eager fingers she broke the seals and tore off the paper wrappings, and found to her great delight an ivory miniature of her mother.

      She had seen the picture often; it had been one of her father's chief treasures, and she prized it the more highly as she thought what a sacrifice it must have been for him to give it up, even to his child.

      It was in a Florentine gold frame, and Patty placed it in the centre of her dressing-table, and then sat down and gazed earnestly at it.

      She saw a sweet, girlish face, which was very like her own, though she didn't recognize the resemblance.

      "Dear mother," she said softly, "I will try to be just such a little girl as you would have wished me to be if you had lived to love me."

      CHAPTER V

      A MINUET

      "Mamma," said Ethelyn, the next morning at breakfast, "I'm going to take a holiday from lessons to-day, because Patricia has just come, and she doesn't want to begin to study right away."

      "Indeed, miss, you'll do nothing of the sort," replied her mother; "you had a holiday yesterday because Patricia was coming; and one the day before, on account of Mabel Miller's tea; and you had holiday all last week because of the Fancy Bazaar. When do you expect to learn anything?"

      "Well, I don't care," said Ethelyn, tossing her head, "I'm going to stay with Patricia to-day, anyhow; if she goes to the schoolroom, I will, and if she don't, I won't."

      "Oh, I'll go to school with you, Ethelyn," said Patty, anxious to please both her aunt and cousin if possible.

      But Mrs. St. Clair said, "No, indeed, Patricia, you don't want to begin lessons yet. Why, you're scarcely rested from your journey. I am going to New York to-day to buy you some new dresses, and if you're not too tired, you may go with me and help select them."

      "Well, I just guess Patricia won't go to New York, unless I go too," cried

      Ethelyn in great excitement. "Do you think I'll stay at home and grub in

      the schoolroom while she's having a good time in the city? Not much, my

      Mary Anne!"

      "Ethelyn!" said her mother, reprovingly, "how many times must I tell you not to use slang? It is vulgar and unladylike, and quite out of keeping with your social position."

      "I don't care; it's expressive if it isn't stylish."

      "Don't say stylish, either. That isn't genteel at all. Say 'correct.'"

      "Oh, 'correct.' Well, mother, I guess it must be correct to use slang, 'cause Gladys Mahoney does, and she's a hummer on style."

      "And I've no doubt her mother reproves her for it, just as I do you. Now go to the schoolroom, it is nearly ten o'clock."

      "I won't go unless Patricia comes too. If she's going to New York with you,

      I'm going."

      "Ethelyn," said Mrs. St. Clair, sternly, "do as I bid you. Go to the schoolroom at once, and study your lessons diligently."

      "No, I won't," replied Ethelyn, stubbornly, "I won't stir a step unless

      Patty comes too."

      "But I'm going to take Patricia to New York."

      "Then I'm going to New York," said Ethelyn, with an air of settling the question, and then she began drumming on the table with her fingers.

      "I want to go to New York with you, mamma," said Florelle; "I want to buy a new dolly."

      "No, baby," said her mother, "you can't go this time. You stay at home like a good girlie, and I'll bring you a beautiful new doll."

      "But I want to go! I will go!" and Florelle began to cry.

      "Stop that crying," said her father, "stop it at once, and when I come home

      I'll bring you a big box of candy."

      "No, I don't want candy,—I want to go to New York,—I want to go—I do-o-o," she wound up with a prolonged wail.

      "Good gracious, Florelle," said Reginald, "do stop that fearful yowling. If you don't, as soon as I go down town I'll send a bear back here to eat you up."

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