Patty Fairfield | Page 9

had never been used to such expensive rugs, still less
had she been accustomed to hearing the prices of things mentioned so
freely.
"Oh, Aunt Isabel, I'd rather not have it then. Really, I'd much rather
have a cheaper one. Suppose I should spoil it in some way."
"Nonsense, my dear, spoil it if you like, I'll buy you another," said
Uncle Robert, grandly.
"Never mind rugs," interrupted Reginald. "I say, mother, aren't you
going to give a party for Patricia?"
"Yes, I think so," answered his mother, "but I haven't decided yet what
kind of an affair it shall be."
"Oh, have a smashing big party, and invite everybody."
"No, Reginald," said Ethelyn, "I hate those big parties, they're no fun at
all. It isn't going to be a party anyway. It's going to be a tea. Didn't you
say so, mamma? A tea is a much nicer way to introduce Patricia than a
party."
"Ho, ho," laughed her brother, "a tea! why they're the most stupid
things in the world. Nobody wants to come to a tea."
"They do so," retorted Ethelyn, "you don't know anything about society.
Teas are ever so much stylisher than evening entertainments, aren't they,

mamma?"
"Well, I don't know," said Mrs. St. Clair, doubtfully, "the Crandons
gave a tea when their cousin visited them."
"Ho, the Crandons," sneered Ethelyn, "they're nobody at all; why,
they've only got one horse."
"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