LITMIR.BIZ

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is any good, it ought to teach you to cut out anything unpleasant. And, if Elise is unpleasant, cut her out.”

      “No, girlie; not that. If Elise is unpleasant,—and it may be only my imagination,—I shall try to make her become pleasant.”

      “I wish you joy of your task,” said Patty, grinning, for she knew Elise better than Christine did, and, while she liked her herself, she felt sure her two friends could never be very congenial.

      The well-selected and well-served luncheon proved most acceptable to appetites sharpened by sea air, and, during its course, enthusiastic plans were made for improving and furnishing “The Pebbles.”

      “Christine will help us with the ‘artistic values,’—I think that’s what you call ’em,” said Patty. “Nan can look after chairs and tables and such prosaic things; and I’ll sew the curtains and sofa-cushions. I love to make soft, silky, frilly things,—and I’m just going to have fun with this house.”

      “What’s my part in this universal plan?” asked Mr. Fairfield.

      “Oh, you can just pay the bills, and say ‘perfectly lovely, my dear,’ whenever we ask you how you like anything!”

      As this was just the rôle Mr. Fairfield had laid out for himself, he acquiesced graciously, and then, luncheon being over, they all went back to the house again.

      “We’ll have to come down several times,” said Nan, “but we may as well measure for some of the hangings and rugs now.”

      So Mr. Fairfield filled many pages of his memorandum book with notes and measurements, and, after an hour or so, they all felt they had made quite a beginning on the furnishing of the new house.

      One delightful room, with a full sea view, Patty declared was Christine’s room, and she was to occupy it just whenever she chose, and she was to select its furnishings herself. The girl’s eyes filled with tears at this new proof of loving friendship, and, though she knew she should take but few vacation days from her work that summer, yet she willingly consented to select the fittings, on condition that it be used as a guest room when she was not present.

      Patty’s own rooms were delightful. A bedroom and dressing-room, opening on a half-enclosed balcony, gave her the opportunity for sleeping out of doors that she so much desired. Her father insisted that she should have what he called a “civilised bedchamber,” and then, if she chose to play gipsy occasionally, she might do so.

      So she and Christine planned all her furniture and decorations, and made notes and lists, and, before they knew it, it was time to return to New York.

      “You know a lot about house decoration, Christine; don’t you?” said Patty, as they sat in the homeward-bound train.

      “No, not a lot. But it comes natural to me to know what things harmonise in a household. Of course, I’ve never studied it,—it’s a science; now, you know. But, if I didn’t want to take up illustrating seriously, I would try decorating.”

      “Oh, illustrating is lots nicer,—and it pays better, too.”

      “I don’t know about that. But Mr. Hepworth says I will make a name for myself as an illustrator, and so I know I shall.”

      Patty laughed. “You have as much faith in that man as I have,” she said.

      “Yes; I’ve implicit faith in his judgment, and in his technical knowledge.”

      “Well, I’ve faith in him in every way. I think he’s a fine character.”

      “You ought to think so, Patty. Why, he worships the ground you walk on.”

      “Oh, Christine, what nonsense!” Patty blushed rosy-red, but tried to laugh it off. “Why, he’s old enough to be my father.”

      “No, he isn’t. He’s thirty-five,—that’s a lot older than you,—but, all the same, he adores you.”

      “I wish you wouldn’t talk like that, Christine,” said Patty, with a new note of hauteur in her voice. “Mr. Hepworth is my very good friend, and I look up to him in every way, but there is no affection or any such foolishness between us.”

      “Not on your side, perhaps; but there is on his.”

      “Well, if you think so, I don’t want to hear about it. When you talk like that, it just goes to spoil the nice pleasant friendship that Mr. Hepworth and I have had for years.”

      “It isn’t the same as you have for Roger Farrington and Kenneth Harper.”

      “It is! Just the same. Except that Mr. Hepworth is so much older that I never call him by his first name. The others were my school chums. Look here, Christine, we’re going to be very good friends, you and I,—but, if you talk to me like that about Mr. Hepworth, you’ll queer our friendship at its very beginning. Now, quit it,—will you?”

      “Yes, I will, Patty. And I didn’t mean any harm. I only wanted you to know Mr. Hepworth’s attitude toward you.”

      “Well, when I want to know it, I’ll discover it for myself, or let him tell me. You must know, Christine, that I’m not bothering about such things. I don’t want affection, as you call it, from any man. I like my boy friends, or my men friends, but there’s no sentiment or sentimentality between me and any one of them? Are you on?”

      “On what?” asked Christine, a little bewildered at Patty’s emphatic speech.

      “On deck,” said Patty, laughing at Christine’s blank expression and changing the subject with promptness and dexterity.

Chapter VI.

       The Award

       Table of Contents

      Patty was in high spirits. It was the twentieth of April, and it was almost time for the postman to call on his afternoon round. The two Farringtons and Kenneth were present, and all eagerly awaited the expected letter, telling the result of the Prize Contest.

      “Just think,” said Patty, “how many anxious hearts all over this broad land are even now waiting for the postman, and every one is to be disappointed, except me!”

      “I believe you enjoy their disappointment,” said Elise.

      “You know better, my child. You know I hate to have people disappointed. But, in this case, only one can win. I’m glad I’m that one, and I’m sorry for the others.”

      “S’pose you don’t win,” observed Roger; “what will you do?”

      “There’s no use s’posin’ that, for it can’t happen,” declared Patty, turning from the window, where she had been flattening her nose against the glass, in a frantic endeavour to catch a first glimpse of the belated postman.

      “But, just for fun,” urged Kenneth, “just for argument’s sake, if you didn’t get that prize, what would you do?”

      “I wouldn’t do anything. I’d know the company that offered it was a fake, and had gone back on its own promise.”

      “Patty, you’re incorrigible!” said Ken. “I give you up. You’re the most self-assured, self-reliant, cocksure young person I ever saw.”

      “Thank you, sir, for them kind words! Oh! sit still, my heart! Do I hear that familiar whistle at last?”

      “You do!” shouted Kenneth, making a spring for the front door.

      They all followed, but Kenneth first reached it, and fairly grabbed the letters from the astonished letter-carrier.

      Returning to the library with his booty, he ran them over slowly and tantalisingly.

      “One for Mrs. Fairfield,” he said. “From a fashionable

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