Part 23 (1/2)

”You're pretty busy, I suppose, to-day,” she said, ”getting ready for your play.”

”Yes, I am,” said Patty frankly.

”And you didn't want to take the time to come over here to see me, did you?”

”Oh, I shall have time enough to do all I want to do,” said Patty.

”Don't evade my question, child. You didn't want to come, did you?”

”Well, Miss Daggett,” said Patty, ”you are often quite frank with me, so now I'll be frank with you, and confess that when your message came I did wish you had chosen some other day to send for me; for I certainly have a lot of little things to do, but I shall get them all done, I know, and I am very glad to learn that you are coming to the entertainment.”

”You are a good girl,” said Miss Daggett; ”you are a good girl, and I like you very much. Good-bye.”

”Good-bye,” said Patty, and she ran downstairs and over home, determined to work fast enough to make up for the time she had lost.

She succeeded in this, and when her father came home at night, bringing Mr. Hepworth with him, they found a very charming little hostess awaiting them and Boxley Hall imbued throughout with an air of comfortable hospitality.

After dinner Patty donned her Diana costume and came down to ask her father's opinion of it. He declared it was most jaunty and becoming, and Mr. Hepworth said it was especially well adapted to Patty's style, and that he would like to paint her portrait in that garb. This seemed to Mr. Fairfield a good idea, and they at once made arrangements for future sittings.

Patty was greatly pleased.

”Won't it be fine, papa?” she said. ”It will be an ancestral portrait to hang in Boxley Hall and keep till I'm an old lady like Miss Daggett.”

When they reached Library Hall, where the play was to be given, Patty, going in at the stage entrance, was met by a crowd of excited girls who announced that Florence Dougla.s.s had gone all to pieces.

”What do you mean?” cried Patty. ”What's the matter with her?”

”Oh, hysterics!” said Elsie Morris, in great disgust. ”First she giggles and then she bursts into tears, and n.o.body can do anything with her.”

”Well, she's going to be Niobe, anyway,” said Patty, ”so let her go on the stage and cut up those tricks, and the audience will think it's all right.”

”Oh, no, Patty, we can't let her go on the stage,” said Frank Elliott; ”she'd queer the whole show.”

”Well, then, we'll have to leave that part out,” said Patty.

”Oh, dear!” wailed Elsie, ”that's the funniest part of all. I hate to leave that part out.”

”I know it,” said Patty; ”and Florence does it so well. I wish she'd behave herself. Well, I can't think of anything else to do but omit it. I might ask papa; he can think of things when n.o.body else can.”

”That's so,” said Marian, ”Uncle Fred has a positive genius for suggestion.”

”I'll step down in the audience and ask him,” said Frank.

In five minutes Frank was back again, broadly smiling, and Mr. Hepworth was with him.

”It's all right,” said Frank. ”I knew Uncle Fred would fix it. All he said was, 'Hepworth, you're a born actor, take the part yourself'; and Mr. Hepworth, like the brick he is, said he'd do it.”

”I fairly jumped at the chance,” said the young artist, smiling down into Patty's bright face. ”I was dying to be in this thing anyway. And they tell me the costume is nothing but several hundred yards of Greek draperies, so I think it will fit me all right.”

”But you don't know the lines,” said Patty, delighted at this solution of the dilemma, but unable to see how it could be accomplished.