Patty's Butterfly Days

In response to a desperate appeal from Patty, Jack stopped teasing, and made general conversation, which interested the young people, to the exclusion of Susan.

Then, supper over, he escorted the chaperon from the table, talking to her in low tones.

"I hope I didn't bother you," he said. "You see, I know all about it, and I think it's fine of you to help the girls out in this way."

"You helped me far more than you bothered me, sir," Susan replied with a grateful glance. "Will it soon be over now, sir?"

"Well, they'll have a few more dances, and probably they'll sing a little. They'll go home before midnight. But, I say, Mrs. Hastings, I won't let 'em trouble you. You sit in this cosy corner, and if you'll take my advice, you'll nod a bit now and then,—but don't go really to sleep. Then they'll let you alone."

Susan followed this good counsel, and holding her knitting carelessly in her lap, she sat quietly, now and then nodding, and opening her eyes with a slight start. The poor woman was really most uncomfortable, but Patty had ordered this performance and she would have done her best had the task been twice as hard.

"You were a villain to tease poor Susan so at the table," said Patty to Jack, as they sauntered on the veranda between dances.

"She came through with flying colours," he replied, laughing at the recollection.

"Yes, but it was mean of you to fluster the poor thing."

"Don't you know why I did it?"

"To tease me, I suppose," and Patty drew down the corners of her mouth and looked like a much injured damsel.

"Yes; but, incidentally, to see that pinky colour spread all over your cheeks. It makes you look like a wild rose."

"Does it?" said Patty, lightly. "And what do I look like at other times? A tame rose?"

"No; a primrose. Very prim, sometimes."

"I have to be very prim when I'm with you," and Patty glanced saucily from beneath her long lashes; "you're so inclined to—"

"To what?"

"To friskiness. I NEVER know what you're going to do next."

"Isn't it nicer to be surprised?"

"Well,—that depends. It is if they're nice surprises."

"Oh, mine always are! I'm going to surprise you a lot of times this summer. Are you to be here, at Mona's, all the rest of the season?"

"I shall be here two months, anyway."

"That's time enough for a heap of surprises. Just you wait! But,—I say,—I suppose—oh, pshaw, I know this sounds horrid, but I've got to say it. I suppose everything you're invited to, Mona must be also?"

Patty's eyes blazed at what she considered a very rude implication.

"Not necessarily," she said, coldly. "You are quite at liberty to invite whom you choose. Of course, I shall accept no invitations that do not include Mona."

"Quite right, my child, quite right! Just what I was thinking myself."

Patty knew he was only trying to make up for his rudeness, and she looked at him severely. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself," she said.

"I am! Oh, I AM! deeply, darkly, desperately ashamed. But I've succeeded in making your cheeks turn that peculiar shade of brick-red again!"

"They aren't brick-red!"

"No? Well, a sort of crushed strawberry shading to magenta, then!"

Patty laughed, in spite of herself, and Jack smiled back at her.

"Am I forguv?" he asked, in a wheedling voice.

"On condition that you'll be particularly nice to Mona all summer. And it's not much to your credit that I have to ASK such a thing of you!"

"You're right, Patty," and Jack looked honestly penitent. "I'm a good-for-nothing brute! A boor without any manners at all! Not a manner to my name! But if you'll smile upon me, and let me,—er—surprise you once in a while, I'll,—oh, I'll just tie myself to Mona's apron strings!"

"Mona doesn't wear aprons!"

"No, I know it," returned Jack, coolly, and they both laughed.

But Patty knew she had already gained one friend for Mona, for heretofore, Jack Pennington had ignored the girl's existence.

"What are you doing to-morrow, Patty?" asked Dorothy Dennison, as she and Guy Martin came up to the corner where Patty and Jack were sitting. It was a pleasant nook, a sort of balcony built out from the main veranda, and draped with a few clustering vines. The veranda was lighted with Japanese lanterns, whose gayer glow was looked down upon by the silvery full moon.

"We're going to the Sayres' garden party,—Mona and I," said Patty.

"Oh, good gracious!" rejoined Dorothy. "I suppose Mona will have to be asked everywhere, now you're staying with her!"

"Not to YOUR parties, Dorothy, for I'm sure neither of us would care to come!"

It was rarely that Patty spoke crossly to any one, and still more rarely that she flung out such a bitter speech as that; but she was getting tired of combating the prevalent attitude of the young people toward Mona, and though she had determined to overcome it, she began to think it meant real warfare. Dorothy looked perfectly amazed. She had never heard gentle, merry Patty speak like that before.

Guy Martin looked uncomfortable, and Jack Pennington shook with laughter.

"Them cheeks is now a deep solferino colour," he observed, and Patty's flushed face had to break into smiles.

"Forgive me, Dorothy," she said; "I didn't mean what I said, and neither did you. Let's forget it."

Glad of this easy escape from a difficult situation, Dorothy broke into a merry stream of chatter about other things, and the quartette were soon laughing gaily.

"You managed that beautifully, Patty," said Jack, as a little later, they returned to the house for the last dance. "You showed fine tact."

"What! In speaking so rudely to Dorothy?"

"Well, in getting out of it so adroitly afterward. And she had her lesson. She won't slight Mona, I fancy. Look here, Patty. You're a brick, to stand up for that girl the way you do, and I want to tell you that I'll help you all I can."

"Oh, Jack, that's awfully good of you. Not but what I think you OUGHT to be kind and polite to her, but of course you haven't the same reason that I have. I'm her guest, and so I can't stand for any slight or unkindness to her."

"No, of course not. And there are lots of ways that I can—"