Patty Blossom

But it was difficult to keep the Blaneys off their favourite themes and hard to quell the fun of the irrepressible Chick.

And so, Nan was rather relieved when at a surprisingly early hour the two aesthetes took their leave.

"Oh, Piccalilli blossoms!" cried Chick, when they were fairly out of hearing, "did you ever see anything like that! Where did you unearth them, Patty? The lady one, especially! Wow, but she's a five-reel scream!"

"Stop that, Chick; I think you're real mean! You made me enough trouble at the dinner table, and you needn't make fun of my friends behind their backs."

"But Patty, such backs! I mean, such friends! Oh, I didn't think I could restrain my laughter till they went away from here,—but I managed to do so. Souls! Rusty souls! Wowly-wow-wow!"

"Chick, stop it. I tell you, I won't have it!"

"I'll stop in a minute, Patty. Let me laugh a minute, or I'll explode.

I say, Mrs. Fairfield, did you ever see anything like the lady's robe!

I don't often notice costumes of the fair sex, but that was a hummer from Humville."

"Don't, Chick," said Nan, noticing Patty's quivering lip; "they're Patty's friends, and I'd rather you wouldn't ridicule them."

"I'd rather not myself, honest, Mrs. Fairfield, I'd rather not, but what can you do when they come running up, begging to be ridiculed?"

"They didn't," declared Patty. "Nobody would have thought of ridiculing them, Chick, if you hadn't. They talked a lot of wisdom that you couldn't assimilate, and you're envious of their superior minds, that's what ails you."

"Patty, Patty," said her father, laughing outright at this, "my dear child, are you really so infatuated with those people that you believe what you're saying?"

"Of course, I am. I don't expect you to understand them, Father, you're older, and belong to another generation."

"Good gracious, Patty," cried Nan, gasping, "do you think your father is too old to understand that drivel?"

"I do," said Patty, calmly, "and you are too, Nan. It takes the modern viewpoint, the young soulsight to apprehend the beauty of vision, the vast—vast–"

"Horizon," suggested Chick, kindly.

"Yes, horizon," said Patty; "how did you know, Chick?"

"Oh, horizons are always vast. Deeps are vasty. Nothing much else is vast, except once in a while a distance. So I felt safe in chancing the horizon."

"Oh, Chick, you are the funniest thing!" said Nan, who was shaking with laughter at Patty's chagrin. "But," and her voice suddenly became serious, "I won't stand for your nonsense. I range myself on Patty's side. These people were our guests. I forbid any slighting allusions to them. Their ways may not be our ways, but if they are Patty's friends they are my friends."

The warm, sincere ring of Nan's voice went to Patty's heart, and she smiled again.

"Good for you, you old trump!" she exclaimed, looking gratefully at Nan. "Now, Dad, you come over, and I can manage Chick, myself."

Patty was in gay good humour again, and she perched on the arm of her father's chair, as she proceeded to win him over.

"You know I can't resist your blandishments, my angel child," he said, as Patty caressed his handsome iron-grey hair, "but I must admit your Cosmickers have no message for me."

"That's just it," cried Patty, triumphantly. "I knew it! They have no message for you, because you don't understand their language, you're—Dad, I hate to say it,—but, you're too old!"

And with a kiss on his frowning forehead, Patty ran to the piano, and began to play "Silver Threads Among the Gold," to a rag-time improvisation of her own.

"Oh, Pattibelle," cried Chick, "what would your vast-horizoned friends say if they could hear you playing ragtime! I'm sure a lemon-coloured nocturne or a flaming fugue would be nearer their idea of melody."

"Play us a fox-trot, Nan," said Patty, jumping up, and in another minute, as Nan obligingly acquiesced, Patty and Chick were dancing gaily up and down the room.

"Forgive me, Patty," said Chick, as they danced out into the hall, "I wouldn't offend you or your friends for worlds, but they—well, they struck me funny, you see."

"They're not funny, Chick. They're the real thing. You can't see it, I know, and neither can Dad or Nan, but I do."

"All right, Patty. Go into it if you like. I don't believe it will hurt you. And like the measles, the harder you have it, the sooner you'll get over it, and you'll never have it but once. By the way, they invited me to their Christmas racket,—and I'm going!"

CHAPTER XIII

ELISE AND PATTY

"I think you're just as mean as you can be, Patty Fairfield! You won't come to my tree and you won't have the House Sale, and you won't do a thing anybody wants you to! I never saw such a disagreeable old thing as you are!"

"Why, Elise, you dear little, sweet, 'bused child! Am I as bad as all that? You do su'prise me! Well, well, I must mend my ways. I've always had a reputation for good nature, but it seems to be slipping awa' Jean, like snow in the thaw, Jean,—as the song book says. Now, my friend and pardner, here's my ultimatum. But smile on me, first, or I can't talk to you at all. You look like a thunder cloud,—a very pretty thunder cloud, to be sure,—but still, lowering and threatening. Brace up, idol of my heart,—shine out, little face, sunning over with raven black curls,—I seem to be poetically inclined, don't I?"

Elise laughed in spite of herself. The two girls had been discussing plans, and as Patty stuck to her determination to spend Christmas Eve at the Blaneys', Elise was angry, because she was to have her own Christmas tree that night, and, of course, wanted Patty with her.

They were in the Farringtons' library. It was nearly dusk, and Patty was just about to get her hat to go home, when they began the controversy afresh.

"I can't help laughing, because you're so silly, but I'm angry at you all the same," Elise averred, with a shake of her dark, curly head. "You're so wrapped up in the Blaneys and their idiotic old crowd, that you have no time or attention for your old friends."

"It does seem so," mused Patty; "of course, it might be, because the idiotic crowd are nice and pleasant to me, while my old friends, one of them, at least, is as cross as a bear with a bumped head."

"Well, you're enough to make me cross. Here I'm going to have a big Christmas tree, and a lovely Christmas party, and you won't come to it.

That makes me cross, but to have you throw me over for those ridiculous Blaneys makes me crosser yet."

"You can't get much crosser, you're about at the limit."

"No, I'm not, either. It makes me still crosser that you won't have the House Sale."

"Oh, Elise, it's such a nuisance! Turn the whole place upside down and inside out, for a few dollars! Let's get the money by subscription. Everybody would be glad to give something for the girls' library."

"No, they won't. Everybody has been asked for money for charity all winter, and they're tired of it. But a novel sale would bring in a lot."

Patty and Elise were greatly interested in getting a library for the working girls' club, which they helped support. Patty was usually most enthusiastic and energetic in furnishing any project for helping this work along, and Elise was greatly surprised at her present unwillingness to hold a sale they had been considering.

"And it's only because you're crazy over that Cosmic Club that you can't bother with the things that used to interest you. Phil Van Reypen thinks they're a horrid lot, and so does Chick Channing, and I do, too."

"You forget that it was down at your house in Lakewood that I first met them."

"No, I don't; but that's no reason you should go over to them so entirely, and forsake all of your old set. I never liked the Blaneys; I only wanted you to meet them, to see how queer and eccentric they were. But I never supposed you'd join their ranks, and become so infatuated with Sam Blaney–"

"I'm not infatuated with Sam Blaney!"