Patty’s Pleasure Trip

Patty’s
Pleasure Trip

BY
CAROLYN WELLS

AUTHOR OF
TWO LITTLE WOMEN SERIES,
THE MARJORIE SERIES, Etc.

GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Copyright, 1909, by
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
Published, September, 1909

Printed in U.S.A.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
FUN AT THE GRANGE

“YES, indeed,” said Patty, pleasantly.

“And then a broad-leafed hat, with ribbons from the edge of the brim, tied under my chin,—or, perhaps chiffon ties. Which would you have, Patty?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Patty, in a voice of enthusiasm, but not looking up from her book.

“Oh, Patty, you silly! Now, listen. Look at these plates, and pick out the prettiest hat so I may get it for the garden-party.”

Lady Kitty spread out the sheets of millinery designs, and still absorbed in her reading, Patty lifted her hand and, without looking, pointed a finger at random till it rested on one of the pictured hats.

“That one! Why, Patty, you’re crazy! I couldn’t wear that pudgy little turban,—I want a big sun-hat. Would you have a straw or lace?”

“Yes, indeed,” said Patty, turning a leaf and devouring the next page of her book.

“Angel child! You think you’re teasing me, don’t you? But not so! I love to see you so bent on literary pursuits! Indeed, I don’t think one book at a time is enough for a great brain like yours,—you should have two at once. You go on with yours, and I’ll read another to you.”

Picking up a book from a rustic couch near by, Lady Kitty began to read aloud. Her reading was more dramatic than the text warranted, and besides much elocutionary effect, she gesticulated vigorously, and finally rose, and standing straight in front of Patty, kept on reading and declaiming in ludicrous style.

The two were under a large marquee, on the lawn of Markleham Grange, the country home of Lady Hamilton, and her father, Sir Otho. Patty was comfortably tucked up among the cushions of a lengthy wicker chair, and had elected to spend the morning reading a new story-book of the very kind she liked best. So, partly because she didn’t want to be disturbed, but more for the sake of mischievously teasing her friend, Patty pretended to be oblivious to the hat subject.

But she could not long keep a straight face while Kitty waved her arms and trilled her voice in ridiculous fashion, as she continued to read aloud from the book. Then she would drop into a monotonous drawl, then gallop ahead without emphasis or inflection, and sometimes she would chant the words in dramatic recitative.

Of course, while this went on, Patty couldn’t read her own book, so finding herself beaten at her own game of teasing, she closed the volume, and said quietly:

“I wish you’d let me advise you about that new hat you’re thinking of buying. You always selects such frights.” As Lady Hamilton’s hats were renowned for their beauty and variety, this speech was taken at its worth, and in a moment the two friends were earnestly discussing the respective merits of chiffon, lace, and straw, as protection against the rays of a garden-party sun.

It was the latter part of a lovely morning in the latter part of a lovely August. Patty had drifted through the summer, making and unmaking plans continuously in her efforts to secure the greatest good to the greatest number of her family and friends. She had not joined her parents in Switzerland, as she had thought to do, for invitations to various English country-houses had seemed more attractive, and after a round of such parties, Patty had come to Markleham Grange, for the double purpose of having a few quiet weeks, and of being with her adored friend, Lady Kitty.

The Grange was a typical country home, with all the appurtenances of terraces, gardens, duck-ponds, woodlands, and hunting preserves.

In the great, rambling house guests came and went, and Patty greatly enjoyed the personal freedom that prevailed.

Though occupations and amusements of all sorts were provided, no social obligations were exacted until afternoon tea time. At five, however, everybody assembled on the lawn, or, if rainy, in Sir Otho’s billiard-room, and the host himself accepted the attention and companionship of his guests. Dinner, too, was rather formal, and there was always pleasant entertainment in the evening. But it seemed to Patty that she liked the mornings best. She strolled, often all by herself, through the woods and parks; she chatted with the old gardener about the rare and beautiful flowers; she played with the pet fawns, or idly drifted about the lake in a small rowboat. Sometimes she met Sir Otho on her morning rambles, and for a time they would chat together. The old gentleman had a decided liking for Patty, and though he was an opinionated man, and dictatorial of speech, the girl’s innate tactfulness kept her from rousing his contradictory spirit, and they were most amiable friends. But, perhaps best of all, Patty liked the mornings when boxes of new books arrived from London.

Selecting an interesting story, she would make a bee-line for her favourite reading-place. This was a large tent-like affair, canopied, but without sides, and furnished with wicker chairs, tables, and lounges. Soft rugs covered the ground, and the view was across a small lake, dotted with tiny, flowery islands, to glorious green woodlands beyond.

Here, Patty would read and dream until the all too short morning had flown away, and a servant, or Lady Kitty herself, would come to summon her to luncheon. And it was here that Lady Kitty came, with her sheets of new hat designs, just up from London, when teasing Patty declined to be interested.

But having at last thrown herself into the discussion it proved to be an animated one, and ended by Lady Kitty’s return to the house to send an order for hats for both of them.

Patty remained in her lounging chair, but did not immediately resume her book. Her thoughts flew back to Kitty’s ridiculous antics as she read aloud to tease Patty. Then her gaze wandered out to the lake, and she watched a flock of ducklings, who were enthusiastically paddling along by the side of their more sedate mother. Such funny, blundering, little balls of down they were, and when one of them nearly turned a somersault in its efforts to swim gracefully, Patty laughed aloud at him.

“Do it again!” said a low but commanding voice at her side, and Patty looked round to see a grave-looking young man seated on the arm of a chair.

She had not heard him approach, and she stared at him with a pardonable curiosity. He was garbed in white flannels, with a soft, white, silk shirt and Windsor tie.

Though most correct in manner and bearing, he yet had an informal effect, and his large dark eyes looked almost mournfully at Patty.

“I said, do it again!” he repeated, in a slightly aggrieved tone.

“Do what again?” said Patty, more astonished than offended.

“Make that funny noise,—something like a laugh; was it a laugh?”

“Why, yes; one of my very best ones. Didn’t you like it?”

“I thought it was a chime of fairy bells,” was the reply, so fervently given that Patty laughed again.

The young man solemnly bowed as if in acknowledgment of her kindness.

“Don’t take it so hard,” she said, smiling; “you’ll get over it; you’ll be all right in a moment.”

“I’m all right now, thank you. I get used to things very quickly. And,—by the way,—you don’t mind my talking to you? Without having been properly introduced, I mean.”

“I do mind very much. I think you’re forward and unconventional, and I hate both those traits.”

“You’re so direct! Now, a softer, subtler insinuation would have pleased me better.”

“But I’m not trying to please you!”

“No? You really ought to study to please.” The young man arose and looked at Patty with an air of calm, impersonal criticism. “It would suit your personal appearance so well.”

“Indeed! What is my personal appearance?”

“Ah, direct and curious, both! Well, your beauty is of the sort described in most novels as ‘not a classic face, or even good-featured, but with that indescribable charm’——”

“Indeed! I’ve been told that my features were very good.”

“Ridiculous nonsense! Why, your eyes are too large for your face; your hair is too heavy for your head; and, and, your hands are too little for anything!”

“How rude you are!” said Patty, shaking with laughter, “but as I brought it on myself, I suppose I oughtn’t to complain. Now, let’s drop personalities and talk commonplaces.”

“Awfully mean of you—before I had my innings. However, I don’t care; let’s. It’s a fine, well-aired morning, isn’t it?”

“Are you always so funny?” asked Patty, staring at the young man, like a child pleased with a new toy.

“’Most always,” was the cheerful retort; “aren’t you?”

“Now you’re rude again, and I must ask you to go away. But tell me your name before you go, so that I may avoid you in future.”

“What a good plan! My name, on the Grampian Hills, is Floyd Austin, and, truly, I’m well worth knowing. This performance this morning is just an escapade. Into each life some escapades must fall, you know. And, by the way, if you’ll disentangle your eyes from my gaze just for a minute, and look the other way, you’ll see the august Sir Otho coming, with ‘bless you, my children’ written legibly in every line of his shining morning face.”

Sir Otho came toward them with hearty greetings.

“Well, well, Patty,” he said; “so you already know our friend Austin? That’s good, that’s good! But you must be afraid of him, for he’s one of our coming poets. He’s already a celebrity, you know.”

“Are you a celebrity?” demanded Patty, turning to Floyd Austin.

“I am,” he said, gravely, “why?”

“Why are you one?”

“To pay a bet,” Austin replied, so promptly that his two hearers laughed.

“He’s crazy,” said Patty to Sir Otho; “I never heard such talk!”

“He’s a humorist, my dear child; you don’t know his language.”

“A humorist?” said Patty, turning to Austin with simple inquiry on her pretty face. “I thought you were a poet.”

Austin flashed an amused look at Sir Otho, and then looking at Patty, he said, in a smooth, even voice:

“‘The force of Nature could no further go,—To make myself she joined the other two.’”

“I do understand your language,” cried Patty, gaily, “that’s in Bartlett,—and it says, ‘Under Mr. Milton’s Picture’!”

“Oh, my dear Patty,” said Sir Otho, “is your poetical knowledge bounded by Bartlett?”

“But, Sir Otho,” observed Floyd Austin, in his slow, quiet way, “Bartlett is not such a bad boundary. His book is like a bird’s-eye view of a city,—which is always a good thing, for one can then pick out the churches and monuments so easily.”

“Yes, and one can miss the most interesting bits that lurk in narrow streets and obscure corners.”

“True enough, and so we both have the best of the argument.”

Floyd Austin was a popular favourite, and one of the explanations of his popularity lay in the fact that he rarely continued to disagree with any one. The discomfiture of another, which is so pleasing to some clever people, was positively painful to his sensitive nature, and so easily adaptable were his own opinions, that he could adjust them to suit those of another with no trouble at all. This made his character somewhat indefinite, but added to the charm of his personality, and his sunny good nature was a quick passport to the good will of a new acquaintance.

One of Austin’s minor interests was harmony of colour. He looked at Patty as she stood leaning lightly against the back of the chair from which she had risen at Sir Otho’s approach. She wore a long summer cloak of a light tan-coloured silk, lined with another silk that was pink, like a seashell.

Simply cut, the long full folds almost hid her white frock, and she gathered the yielding material about her with a graceful gesture.

“How well you wear that cape, Miss Fairfield,” said Floyd, and then turning to Sir Otho, he asked, “Doesn’t she?”

“Why, yes; I daresay,” said the older man, uncertainly. “Do you, Patty?”

“I don’t know,” said the girl, laughing. “I hope so, I’m sure, for it’s one of my favourite wraps. Are you an artist, Mr. Austin, that you’re so observant?”

“I’m an artist in most ways, yes,” he replied; “and I love colour better than anything else in the world. Those two shades in your cloak, now, are like——”

“Like coffee and strawberry ice cream,” put in saucy Patty, and young Austin agreed enthusiastically.

“Just that,” he cried, “and surely there’s no better combination.”

“I like lemon, myself,” began Sir Otho, and just then Lady Hamilton came trailing her soft frills across the lawn toward the group.

“Floyd Austin! by all that’s wonderful!” she exclaimed, as she held out both hands to the young man, and smiled a welcome.

“Yes, Lady Kitty,” he said, taking her hands, and smiling an acceptance of her welcome, “and so glad to see you again.”

“Is Mr. Austin a long-lost brother?” asked Patty, “and if so, why have I never heard of him before?”

“Yes, he’s a brother of all the world,” said Kitty; “the very dearest boy ever. I believe he lives next door to us, but he’s never there, for when he’s there he’s always here!”

“Oh, is he Irish?” said Patty, and Floyd Austin’s eyes twinkled at her quick repartee.

“He’s cosmopolitan,” said Sir Otho; “lives all over the world. But he’s a dear vagabond, and as long as we can keep him here, we’re going to do so.”

“Not long,” said Austin, shaking his head. “I’m just down for a whiffling trip, and then off again to a summer clime.”

“Oh, you can change your plans,” said Lady Kitty, easily. “I’ve known you to do it before. And I’m sure I can persuade you now, for I’ve Miss Fairfield to help me coax you.”

“Oh, I’m no good at coaxing,” said saucy Patty, who was not yet quite sure that she liked this rather audacious young man.

“But I’ll teach you how to coax prettily,” he said; “and then when you learn, you can coax me to do anything, and I’ll allow myself to be persuaded.”

“Allow yourself indeed!” said Patty. “Probably you won’t be able to help yourself!”

“Probably not,” he responded, with his unfailing concurrence.

CHAPTER II
A SUMMONS HOME

AFTERNOON tea was in progress, and as a light rain had set in, it was being served in the billiard-room.

This large apartment was very attractive, for aside from the purpose for which it was intended, it was admirably adapted for a cosy lounging-place. A sort of extension with roof and sides of stained glass was an ideal place for the tea-table and its many appurtenances, and except for the footman, who brought in fresh supplies, Lady Kitty and her guests waited upon themselves.

Though never a large group, a few neighbours usually dropped in at tea-time, and as there were always some people staying in the house, the hour was a social one.

Patty, looking very dainty in a pretty little house-dress of Dresden silk, was having a very good time.

Flo Carrington, a young English girl, whom she had met only the day before, came bustling in with exclamations of dismay.

“I’m nearly drowned!” she cried. “The pelting rain has ruined me frock, and I’m starving for me tea. Do give me some, dear Lady Kitty.”

“You shall have it at once,” declared Patty, hovering around the tea things; “cream or lemon?”

“Lemon, and two lumps. You pretty Patty-thing, I’m so glad to see you again. I’ve only known you twenty-four hours, but already I feel one-sided if you’re not by me. Sit down, and let’s indulge in pleasant conversation.”

So with their teacups, the girls sat down, and being largely about their two selves, the conversation was very pleasant indeed. But soon they were interrupted, as Cadwalader Oram, a typical young Englishman, approached them.

“You two young women have monopolised each other long enough,” he declared; “you must now endeavour to entertain me.”

“That’s easy,” said Patty, and turning to a near-by muffin-stand, she took a plate of hot, buttered ones, and offered them to young Oram; “have a muffin?”

“Indeed I will, they’re very entertaining. Have you ever noticed how wonderful the Markleham muffins are? I get such nowhere else. Why is that, I wonder?”

Lady Kitty, who was waiting by, answered this herself.

“Because at large and formal teas,” she said, “muffins are not served; and if one’s friends drop in unexpectedly, muffins are rarely ready. It is my aim in life to have just so many people to tea as will justify muffins without prohibiting them.”

“At last I understand why the teas at this house are always perfection,” said Oram, rising for a moment as Lady Kitty moved away.

A newcomer had arrived, and Patty, looking up, saw Floyd Austin’s grave face in the doorway.

“Owing to the inclemency of the weather, the starving people gathered in the billiard-room to partake of that nourishment which was to keep them alive until the dinner hour.”

He said this in an impersonal, reading-aloud sort of voice, which seemed to Patty extremely funny.

“He’s always doing that,” said Flo Carrington; “sometimes he’s screamingly droll.”

After greeting his hostess, Austin made his way toward the small group clustered round Patty.

With much chat and banter, he was served with tea and muffins, and so much attention was shown him that Patty concluded he must be a favourite indeed.

“I fear we have rudely run into a cloudburst or something,” remarked Cadwalader Oram, unsuccessfully trying to look through a window, whose stained glass was further obscured by slipping raindrops.

“Sit down, Caddy,” said Flo; “you mar the harmony of this meeting when you’re so restless.”

“Being thus admonished, young Oram crumpled himself gracefully into a chair,” drawled Floyd Austin, as Oram did that very thing, and Patty’s laughter rang out at the apt description.

“Do that again,” said Austin, looking gravely at Patty, but she only smiled saucily at him, and looked over his head at another man who was approaching.

“Mayn’t I be invited to join this all-star group?” If the speaker’s voice betokened a confidence in his own welcome, it was not misplaced, for smiles of greeting were bestowed on him, and Flo Carrington moved to make room for him between herself and Patty on the great settle.

“Striving to act as if a literary lion were an everyday occurrence, the ladies beamed graciously upon him,” droned Austin; and so pat was his allusion that they all laughed.

“This is Peter Homer, Miss Fairfield,” said Flo, and Austin added:

“Beyond all doubt, the most outrageously interesting man you have ever met.”

“Just queer enough to be delightful,” put in Cadwalader Oram, and Mr. Homer smiled benignly at the chaff flung at him.

“He isn’t queer at all,” declared Flo; “he’s a genius, and a thoroughly sensible man.”

“Both? Impossible!” exclaimed Floyd Austin.

“Not at all!” said Mr. Homer, himself. “I’m writing a book in twenty volumes, Miss Fairfield,—that proves my genius. And I’ve left my work to come and chum with my friends,—that proves my sense.”

“What is your book about?” asked Patty, a little uncertain how to talk to this wise man. “Tell me about your work.”

“How can I talk to you of work,” said Mr. Homer, “when you don’t even know what the word means? Have you ever done any work in your life?”

“No,” admitted Patty; “I’m too busy being idle to have any time for work. My life is nothing but folly.”

“But folly and happiness are twins,” said he, looking kindly at the girl, and when kindness shone in Peter Homer’s blue eyes he was indeed attractive.

“They are,” agreed Patty; “but pray how do you know what the word folly means?”

“His folly is being wise,” broke in Cadwalader Oram.

“Good for you, Caddy!” exclaimed Floyd Austin. “If that didn’t have a vaguely familiar ring about it, I should say you’d made an epigram.”

“Well, let’s say it all the same,” said Flo Carrington; “he may never come any nearer to one.”

“I don’t want to,” returned Oram. “Stevenson says, ‘There’s nothing so disenchanting as attainment,’ and that’s a delightful principle to work on. I hope to goodness I shall always fail just as I’m about to attain.”

“What nonsense!” cried Patty. “Then if you ever ask a lovely girl to marry you, you’ll be secretly hoping she’ll say ‘no!’”

“My word! but Americans are clever!” said Mr. Oram, bowing to her; “but for the sake of my argument, I must even subscribe to that.”

“Oh, pshaw, Caddy!” said Mr. Homer, “don’t worry over it. You know you’re a younger son, and very few girls would marry you anyway.”

“Very few would be enough,” observed Cadwalader, quickly and Floyd Austin immediately chimed in:

“Having neatly vanquished his opponent, the younger son chuckled softly to himself.”

Then as Lady Kitty came, and took Mr. Homer away, the little group broke up and somehow Patty found herself talking to Floyd Austin.

“Say some more of those funny things,” she demanded; “I never heard any one do that before.”

“The young man glanced furtively at his watch, and a spasm of pain crossed his features as he realised he must say adieu to the fair young girl before him.”

Austin said this in a whimsical, high-pitched tone, and Patty laughed aloud in spite of herself.

“Thank you,” he said, earnestly, for his admiration of her musical laugh was now a standing joke between them. “And by the way, there’s a dance at Three Towers to-morrow night. I suppose you’ll go. Will you give me all the odd-numbered dances? Just for luck, you know.”

“All the odd numbers! Why, I never heard of such greediness! I’ll give you just one dance, and you may be thankful if you get all of it!”

“Somehow, I can’t feel alarmed, for I know you’ll change your mind a dozen times before to-morrow night comes.”

“How well you read me! But truly, I can’t help it. I always fraction up my dances, and they won’t come out even, and then I have to tear up my programme, and then of course I can’t remember who’s who in the ballroom.”

“Who’s hoodooed in the ballroom, you mean. But after that programme’s torn up, I may fare better than in the face of its accusing statistics.”

“Tell me something about Mr. Homer,” said Patty, as she looked at the tall man who was the centre of an admiring group.

“Peter Homer? Well, he’s the rightest kind of a fellow, a great scholar, and the best-looking man I ever saw,—outside my own mirror.”

“Do you think you’re pretty?” asked Patty, looking at him with an air of innocent inquiry.

“Yes, indeed. Not as pretty as you are, of course, but still a beauty. But Homer has the noble brow and lantern jaws that go to make up the ideal of facial elegance. Isn’t his hair stunning?”

Mr. Homer’s hair was black and abundant. It was somewhat bushy and of coarse texture, and was tossed over back, as if by the incessant pushings of an impatient hand.

“You’ll like him,” Austin went on, “but you won’t understand or appreciate him; you’re too young and ignorant.”

“Thank you,” said Patty.

“Not at all. Don’t mention it, no trouble, I assure you. But Homer’s a puzzle.”

“I’m specially good at puzzles.”

“Ah, but he isn’t of the ‘transposed, I am a fish,’ variety. You never can solve Peter Homer, little girl.”

“I’ve no desire to,” said Patty, a little chagrined at his superior tone. “He isn’t a prize puzzle, is he?”

“With the native quickness of the young American, she gracefully took the wind out of the sails of the conversation,” piped Austin, as he looked at her admiringly. Just then a footman brought a telegram to Patty.

“I brought it at once, ma’am,” he said, “if so there might be an answer. The man will wait a bit.”

“Allow me,” said Austin, slitting the envelope for her; “and I’ll stand in front of you while you read it, lest it may be of dire import, and your emotion be exposed to the gaping crowd.”

Patty smiled at his nonsense, and read the telegram:

“Last call. No more postponements. We will come for you next week, and all start for home September first. Be ready.

“Father.”

“Oh,” cried Patty in surprised dismay, as she grasped the sense of the message.

“Can I help?” said Austin, quite serious now, for he saw Patty was really agitated.

“No. It’s nothing tragic. At least, not really so, but it seems so to me. I have to go home, that’s all.”

“Home? to America?”

“Yes; and of course, I’m glad to go, in some ways, but I wanted to stay over here a little longer. Through the autumn, anyway.”

“It’s a beastly pity. I don’t want you to go. Who says you must?”

“My father,” said Patty. “I’ve been promising to join him all summer, but somehow I didn’t get off, and now he suddenly says we’re all to go home.”

“All?”

“Yes, father and Nan and me. Nan’s my dear little stepmother. She’s the sweetest thing,—I just love her. I’m really crazy to see them both again, but I don’t want to go back to New York quite yet. I’ll soon get used to the idea, but coming just now, it’s a disappointment.”

“It is to me, I assure you. Why, we’re just beginning to be friends.”

“Yes, I shall always remember you pleasantly.”

Patty was really thinking of something else, and said this so perfunctorily that Floyd Austin drawled out:

“Having made a polite speech, the young lady promptly forgot the very presence of the gentleman who was addressing her.”

“Nonsense,” said Patty laughing; “there, I’ll put this rather disturbing telegram away for the present, and devote my attention entirely to you!”

“Heaven be praised!” murmured Austin, rolling his melancholy eyes toward the ceiling. “But oughtn’t you to answer it? You know the henchman awaiteth.”

“Oh, yes; well, I’ll scribble a reply.”

Turning to a desk, Patty quickly wrote:

“All right. Come on. I’ll be ready.”

Then addressing it, and signing it, she gave it to Floyd, who went in search of a footman.

After the tea guests had all gone, Patty went to Lady Kitty’s room to tell her the news.

“Wake up,” said Patty, gently dropping a kiss on the closed eyes of her friend, who was resting a bit before dinner.

“What for?” asked Kitty, not opening her eyes.

“What for, indeed! To see the last of your rapidly-disappearing friend and partner. Eyes, gaze your last! Heart, breathe your fond farewells!”

The big blue eyes of Kitty Hamilton slowly unclosed themselves.

“Melodramatics, my dear!” she said; “what do they mean?”

“Read that!” said Patty, handing her the telegram.

Kitty read it twice, and then sat up, wide awake enough now.

“My little Pattypat,” she said, “you can’t go away home to America. I won’t let you!”

“You can’t help yourself, Kitsie. If father has made up his mind,—and it does sound so,—off we go.”

“They’re coming here next week,” went on Kitty, musing over the telegram. “That part of it’s delightful. I’ll make it so pleasant for them that they can’t tear themselves away.”

“You can’t do that, dear. But it will be fun to see them. Blessed old Nan! I’ve missed her a lot this summer.”

“You fraud! I do believe you’re glad you’re going home, after all.”

“Well, in some ways, I am. You know I’m rather adaptable, and when I get my sailing orders, I begin to face toward the sea. I hate to leave you, and lots of other friends over here, but, I have friends in America, too, you know. And, Kitty, Sir Otho promised he’d bring you over there some time.”

“Well, perhaps he will. At any rate, don’t let this summons cloud your bright young life for the moment. Lock it up in your desk, and put it out of your mind for to-night, anyway. Now, run and dress for dinner. What are you wearing?”

“Are there guests?”

“Yes, a few. Nobody very especial. Put on that speckled gauze thing.”

“Don’t you call my dotted chiffon by disrespectful names,” and Patty ran, singing, away to her own room.

CHAPTER III
A PLEASURE TRIP OFFERED

“KITTY, I’ve had a jounce,” said Patty, next day, as she sought her friend and found her in the pleasant morning room that overlooked the rose-garden.

Lady Hamilton treated her young guest to a haughty, disdainful stare.

“If you will talk in barbaric jargon,” she said, “you can’t expected civilised people to understand you.”

Patty had an open letter in her hand, and as she fell sideways into a big easy-chair, she gave her hostess a dear little smile of apology.

“It is horrid, I know,” she said, contritely. “I don’t know why the excessively correct and well-bred atmosphere of Markleham Grange should bring out my worst American slang, but it does. I beg your pardon, Kitty, and I’ll try to mend my ways.”

“Oh, don’t take it too seriously,” laughed Lady Kitty, “and now, what jounced you?”

“Well, you may remember I had a telegram yesterday, from my adored parent, telling me I was to start for home the first of September.”

“I remember it with startling distinctness.”

“Well, forget it, then, for it isn’t true. One of the clever operators of your clever British telegraph company must have misread or miswritten a word, for I have a letter here from my father, and it seems he wrote Rome instead of home.”

“Oh, Patty Fairfield! And aren’t you really going home at all? And are you going to Rome? To Italy?”

“Yes, just that! Father and Nan have suddenly decided to spend the autumn in Italy, a pleasure trip, you know, and go straight to Rome first, and then go home later, about Christmas, they think.”

“Well, I don’t wonder you were,—what did you call it? Bumped?”

“No, I didn’t say that. I merely announced that I was,—ahem,—surprised a bit.”

“And pleased?”

“Yes, very much pleased. I didn’t care a lot about Switzerland, but I’m crazy to go to Rome and Venice and some few other Italian show-places. Indeed it will be a pleasure trip for me.”

“Well, it’s lovely. I can’t leave now, of course, but father and I will run down to see you later, wherever you are. I need a little southern sun on my complexion.”

“Nothing could improve your complexion,” said Patty, kissing it, “but it will be great to have you join us. I feel like a whirlpool. It’s awful to have my outlook whipped about so often and so suddenly.”

“And to-morrow you may get a letter saying this is a mistake, and your father is taking you to Kamschatka.”

“Indeed, it isn’t father who’s changeable! It’s that bright telegraph operator, who can’t read a gentleman’s handwriting. Well, there’s no harm done, and now I’ll run away and adjust my mind to my changed fortunes.”

Patty went out to her favourite seat under the awning, and gave herself up to day dreams of the delightful trip in store for her.

She had always longed to go to Italy, but had not expected to do so for many years yet. For some reason Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield had changed their plans, but though the letter told of this, it told little else.

“No hanging back now,” her father had written; “no excuses of week-ends or house-parties. Cancel all your engagements, if you’ve made any, and be ready to leave Markleham Grange when we come for you next week.”

“He needn’t have been so explicit,” thought Patty, “for I’ve no desire to put house-parties ahead of a trip to Italy. Why, I wouldn’t miss it for anything! I wonder if we will go to Venice. I suppose I ought to study up art and things,—I’m fearfully ignorant. But I couldn’t learn much in a week. I guess I’ll wait, and learn it on its native heath. Perhaps I won’t care much for the old statues and things, anyway. I suppose they’re awfully ruined. Must look like a railroad accident. Oh, that’s horrid of me! I ought to have more respect for such things. Well, I’m going anyhow, and I’ll have the time of my life, I know I shall.”

Patty lived through that day absent-mindedly. Somehow, going to Italy seemed a responsibility, and one not to be undertaken thoughtlessly.

She hinted this to Lady Hamilton, and Kitty laughed outright.

“My word!” she said; “don’t you think you’re going to do the Yankee Tourist effect! Don’t you go pottering about the galleries with your nose in a catalogue, and a Baedeker under your arm! A nice pleasure trip that would be! You’re too ignorant to be an intelligent art lover, and not ignorant enough to pose as one; just stumble around among the pictures, and much of what is good will stick to your memory, and the rest will brush off of itself.”

“You’re a comfort, Kitty,” said Patty; “I thought I ought to study up Ruskin on the Tuscans and Etruscans, or whatever those art books are about.”

“You’re too much of a goose, Patty, to study anything. But I expect you’ll get a lot of fun out of Italy.”

“I rayther think I shall,” said Patty, with twinkling eyes; for, as she well knew, she found fun wherever she looked for it.

That night they went to the dance at Three Towers. This was a neighbouring country place, whose three noble towers ranked among the oldest in England. Patty was enchanted with the grand old house, for her delvings into architectural books through the summer had taught her to appreciate historic mansions.

Patty almost held her breath as she entered the stately ballroom, with its crystal chandeliers, like suspended frozen fountains, sparkling with hundreds of wax candles. The floral decorations were elaborate, but to Patty’s mind they almost detracted from the grandeur of the massive beams and studded ceilings of the fine old hall. After greeting the hostess, the Markleham party found themselves surrounded by friends and acquaintances, and Patty learned that the dancing had already begun.

Sir Otho made his escape to some other room, where he might chat undisturbed with some of his cronies, and Lady Kitty and Patty were soon provided with programmes, and besieged for dances.

“Now you have done it!” was Floyd Austin’s comment, as he presented himself, and gazed in frank admiration at Patty’s pretty evening gown of fluffy white tulle, decorated with silver tracery. “Is that the frock of a hundred frills?”

“Aptly named, Floyd,” said Lady Kitty; “and a becoming costume for my little girl, isn’t it?”

“Oh, fair,—madame, fair,” said Austin, teasingly.

“I’d rather be asked to dance than to have ambiguous compliments,” said Patty, tapping her foot in time to the Viennese music of the orchestra.

“Come, then,” said Austin, in a tone of patient resignation. “Shall I humour her, Lady Kitty?”

Smiling assent was given, and the two joined the dancers on the polished floor.

“How different from dancing in America,” said Patty, as they wound slowly in and out among the circling throng.

“It’s different from anything, anywhere, any time,” said he.

“You’re too vague,” she sighed. “I never know whether you’re making fun of me or not. Don’t I dance right?”

“Right? You dance like—like——”

“Now I know you’re trying to think of a pretty allusion. Do get a good one.”

“Yes, I will. You dance like,—why, very much like I do! We’re both ripping good dancers.”

Patty laughed out at this. “It is a compliment,” she said, “though not just the sort I expected.”

“Girls expect so much now-a-days. There, the music’s stopped! Must I take you back to Lady Kitty, or will you give me the next dance?”

“Take me back, please. But later on, if you care for another dance, you may come back,—if you like.”

“I do like. I think you were made for men to come back to. Ah, Lady Hamilton, here is your fair charge. Not a frill missing of the original hundred, which speaks well for my guardianship, as many of the ladies are ruefully regarding tattered chiffons, so crowded is the dancing floor.”

“Will you trust yourself to me, then?” said another voice, and Patty turned to see Peter Homer smiling at her.

“Yes, Mr. Homer,” she said, “as soon as I get my programme again. Mr. Austin has it. Oh, here it is. Yes, you may have this one.”

And rosy with the fun of it all, Patty put her hand on Mr. Homer’s arm and walked away.

But he led her away from the dancers to an adjoining room, where there were fewer people, less light, and no music.

“Sit down here and talk to me,” he said, arranging a chair for her. “I don’t care for dancing at all.”

“Well, upon my word!” said Patty. “But I do care for dancing.”

“Yes, I know you do. But just now you’re going to stay right here with me; so you may as well accept it gracefully.”

“Why should I want to do that?” said Patty, who always rebelled at coercion. “Everybody else is smiling and gay, while you look like ‘cloudy, with showers’!”

“Oh, no, I don’t,” said Mr. Homer, smiling; “and now what shall I talk to you about?”

“Italy,” said Patty, promptly. “I’m going there soon. I don’t know a thing about it, and I want to know it all. What’s it like?”

“Well, Italy is like a lovely Monday in the spring; when they’ve washed the sky, and blued it, and hung it up in the sunshine to dry.”

“That’s pretty,” said Patty, approvingly. “And are there trees?”

“Yes; trees tied together with long ropes of grapevines. They look like Alpine travellers roped together for safety.”

“What are they really tied for?”

“They’re not tied. The grapevines are festooned from one tree to another in the orchards. Thus it is a vineyard and an orchard both.”

“It sounds lovely. Tell me more.”

“No; I would rather hear you talk. Tell me what you want most to find in Italy.”

“Beauty.”

“There’s plenty of that. Italy is a saturated solution of beauty. Which kind do you want, art or Nature?”

“I know so little about art. A lady at luncheon to-day was surprised because I don’t even know the names of the twelve ‘world-pictures.’”

“World-pictures! What are they? The scenes of Creation?”

“Why, a list of twelve of the greatest pictures in the world.”

“My word! there’s no fool like an art fool. But you’re too chameleonic to go to Italy, anyway. It has some several hundred sides, and you’ll absorb a bit of every one of them, and come back a mosaic, yourself. I wish you could concentrate, but I suppose you’re too young.”

“I’m not so dreadfully young, and—I am not bred so dull but I can learn.”

“Well, learn right, then. Don’t let them teach you to rave over Botticelli’s ‘Spring,’—go and look at ‘David’ instead.”

“Mightn’t that be merely a difference of individual taste?”

Mr. Homer frowned. “Yes, it might be,” he said; “have you an individual taste?”

About to be offended, Patty thought better of it, and smiled.

“What a dear disposition you have,” said Homer, in a tone full of contrition. “I have a brutal way of speaking, I know, and I am so sorry. But I wish I could show you Italy as you should see it.”

“Everybody seems to want to show me Italy as I should see it,” observed Patty, placidly.

“Yes, and you’ll get a fine jumble of it! Italy is half glory and half glamour, and you’ll be so rolled up in the mists of glamour that you can’t see the glory clearly.”

“I hope I shall,” exclaimed Patty. “I want the glamour. I want to see the Coliseum by moonlight. I don’t care how hackneyed it is!”

“You oughtn’t to see it by moonlight. You ought to see it at midday, in the strong, clear sunlight; and all alone, listen to its vibrant silence that tells you of itself.”

“Oh,” said Patty, thrilled by the intense note in his voice. “I didn’t know you had so much imagination.”

“That isn’t imagination, it’s reality. The real past speaks to you; not a foolish emotional reproduction that you have conjured up yourself.”

“The curfew tolls the knell of our next dance,” chanted Floyd Austin, coming toward them. “I thought I never should find you, Miss Fairfield. May I have you, please?”

“Mr. Homer is telling me about the Coliseum,” said Patty, making no move to go.

“Quite right, quite right. If any one has anything to say, he may as well say it about the Coliseum. But that is liable to stand for some time yet, and this witching hour is fleeting. So, cub, oh, cub with be,—the bood is beabig.”

Patty rose, laughing.

“I suppose I must go,” she said, as Mr. Homer bowed courteously, and murmured a few words of regret at her departure.

“Another victim?” said Austin, quizzically. “Now, how can a will o’ the wisp like you attract a wise and solemn old owl like Homer?”

“He attracted me,” said Patty, simply.

“Oh, that explains it. But then, you also attract people who do not attract you; myself, for instance.”

“Why, I think you’re quite pleasant,” said saucy Patty, looking at him with an air of patronising indifference.

“You’d better think so, or I won’t be pleasant!”

“Oh, yes, you will; you’re always pleasant.”

“As Rollo’s uncle said to him, ‘It’s a pleasure to go about with such a pleasant and sensible boy as you.’”

“But I didn’t say sensible.”

“Thank Heaven for that! Now never mind remembering what Homer told you about the Coliseum, but remember what I tell you. Be sure to see it by moonlight first. The night I first saw it, the moon was gibbous——”

“What does gibbous mean?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea. But, anyway, the moon was awful gibbous, and the moonlight was misty, like spray, you know,—and it flooded the Coliseum, and ran over onto the dome of St. Peter’s——”

“What nonsense are you talking? You can’t see St. Peter’s from the Coliseum, can you? Have you ever been to Rome?”

“Now that you mention it, I don’t believe I have! But what’s the use of imagination, if you can’t see things you’ve never seen?”

“You are too ridiculous!” declared Patty, laughing, and then nodding him a dismissal, as Cadwalader Oram claimed her for a dance.

“How she is made for happiness,” said Austin, as he dropped into a chair beside Lady Kitty, and together they watched Patty dance away.

“She is,” agreed Kitty, who was a life-long friend of Floyd Austin, and greatly liked the young man; “yet she’s not nearly so much of a butterfly as she seems.”

“I’m sure of that,—though I’ve only seen her butterflyish side. If Meredith hadn’t already used the phrase, ‘a dainty rogue in porcelain,’ I should coin it to describe Miss Fairfield. Don’t tell me she has an aim in life.”

“Not quite that; but I think sometimes she wishes she had one.”

“You mean, she thinks she ought to wish she had one.”

“Yes, that is a truer statement of the case,” agreed Kitty.

CHAPTER IV
A FAREWELL PARTY

MR. and Mrs. Fairfield arrived duly at Markleham Grange, and in response to urgent invitation consented to stay there for a few days before taking Patty away with them.

But the last evening had come and the party that gathered on the terrace after dinner showed that subdued air that last evenings usually compel.

The party was not a small one, for there had been guests at dinner, and several of the young people from the neighbouring country-houses had come over later, to say good-by to Patty.

“I’m so sorry to have you go,” said Flo Carrington, as she possessed herself of Patty’s hand and caressed it.

“I’m sorry to go,” replied Patty; “somehow it seems as if I were always saying good-by to somebody. I’ve visited so much this summer, and every visit means a regretful parting.”

“At the heartrending pathos of Miss Fairfield’s tones, everybody burst into tears,” declaimed Floyd Austin, burying his face in a voluminous handkerchief. But so burlesque was his woe that everybody burst into laughter instead.

“You may stay here if you choose, instead of going with us, Patty,” said her father. “I didn’t realise it would be such a wrench for you and your friends.”

“No, thank you,” said Patty, decidedly. “The longer I stay, the more painful would be the wrench,—and I’ve no notion of losing my Italian trip, anyway.”

“That’s the right way to look at it,” said Austin, approvingly, “and cheer up, the fatal blow is yet to fall. I, too, am going to Italy in a few weeks, and I’ll meet you on any Rialto you say.”

“Are you really?” exclaimed Patty, pleased at the prospect. “Won’t that be gay, father? And Lady Hamilton and her father are going later too. We can have a reunion. Won’t you come, Flo?”

“I wish I could,” said the girl, and Mr. Fairfield said heartily:

“I shall be more than glad to welcome any of Patty’s friends, wherever we meet them. When are you starting, Mr. Austin?”

“I’m not sure yet, Mr. Fairfield. Perhaps in two or three weeks. Keep me posted as to your whereabouts, and I’ll find you somehow.”

“Do. We are going direct to Rome, and shall stay there for a time before we begin a series of other cities.”

“Are you going to Milan?” asked Cadwalader Oram.

“Yes, later,” said Mr. Fairfield, and Patty said, “Why?”

“Because I want you to be sure to see the man with his skin hanging over his arm.”

“What!”

“Yes, truly. It’s a great statue,—in the Cathedral, you know. The gentleman was flayed,—he was one of the noble family of martyrs,—and it was his whim to have his statue taken, with his whole skin flung gracefully over one arm. It’s a most impressive sight.”

“I should think so!” said Patty. “I’ll jot that down in my book. I’m making a list of things to see that are not in the guidebooks.”

“Well, you won’t find that in a guidebook. But be sure not to miss it.”

“We won’t,” said Mr. Fairfield, “it sounds extremely interesting.”

“I’m going to coax mother to let me go,” said Flo Carrington. “She’s always promised me an Italian trip, and Snippy could take me as well as not.”

“Who’s Snippy?” asked Patty.

“My governess. She’s been with us for years, and she’s awfully capable and well-travelled, and languaged, and all that. If she will take me, and mother lets me go, may I see you sometimes?”

“You may, indeed,” said Mr. Fairfield, answering for his daughter. “Come right along, Miss Carrington, and we’ll be of service to you in any way we can.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Flo, her dark eyes dancing at the thought of such a pleasure trip. “I’ll try to wheedle mumsie into it, and I’ll let you know, Patty, if I succeed. I’ll write you in London.”

“I wish my mumsie would let me go,” put in Caddy Oram, in such plaintive tones that they all laughed. “But she can’t spare her pet boy at present, so I can only wish you all sorts of happy experiences, Miss Fairfield.”

The young man rose to go, and soon there was a general departure of most of the guests. Floyd Austin and Peter Homer tarried after the others had gone, and Lady Hamilton proposed that they all go indoors, for the evening air was growing chill. Then to the dining-room for a bit of a farewell supper, and Patty, as guest of honour, was queen of the merry feast.

“I am very sorry to lose my little Miss Yankee Doodle,” said Sir Otho. “Of all the American girls I’ve ever met,—and I’ve never met any other,—she’s the most like an English girl.”

“I’m sorry not to return the compliment,” said Patty, “but you’re not the least bit like an American. Though you’re quite the nicest Englishman I know.”

A groan from Mr. Homer and a wail from Floyd Austin greeted this speech.

“Never mind,” said Austin, cheerfully, “our own English lassies like us, anyway.”

“And mayn’t we count on your admiration, Mrs. Fairfield?” said Peter Homer. “I trust all American ladies are not so exclusive in their favours as Miss Patricia.”

“You may indeed,” said Nan, smiling; “and let me advise you not to take Patty’s words too literally. I’m beginning to think that since she escaped my restraining influences she has developed coquettish tendencies. I’d not be surprised to learn that she admires both you young men extremely.”

“Good for you, Nan!” cried Patty. “I do! I think they’re great! and I’m not a coquette at all. I’d like to be, but I don’t know how.”

“Don’t bother to learn,” said Peter Homer. “It will come naturally after a while.”

“’Deed I won’t bother to learn,” returned Patty. “I’ve too much to learn now. I want to learn Italian perfectly, before I start for Italy next week, and I want to learn all about art and architecture, and everything like that, before I go, too.”

“Take the same advice for those things,” said Austin; “don’t bother to learn them, and they’ll come naturally after a while.”

“I agree to that,” said Lady Hamilton. “Patty will learn more of art and architecture by being thus suddenly pushed into it than she could learn from a hundred text-books or tutors.”

“Right!” agreed Sir Otho, heartily. “But don’t try too hard to learn, little girl; just enjoy. These are your years for enjoying. When you’re my age you’ll have time to learn.”

“That’s a new theory,” said Mr. Fairfield, smiling, “but I rather think it’s a sound one.”

“I think so, too,” said Nan. “I know lots of people who have just spoiled a perfectly good trip through Italy, because they learned so hard they had no time to enjoy.”

“One should go through Italy,” said Mr. Homer, “with a mind like a sieve. Let it alone, and worthless trifles will sift through, and the big, important things will remain.”

“All this is very comforting,” said Patty, with a relieved sigh; “I had expected to cram as if for an examination, all next week. Now, I shan’t even open a book.”

“Having supplied Miss Fairfield with all necessary advice and information, the two scholarly and erudite gentlemen rose to take their leave,” drawled Austin, as he rose from his chair and beckoned to Mr. Homer to do the same.

Peter Homer made his adieus, and then, saying good-by to Patty, he added:

“I wish I were to show you my Italy, but perhaps it’s just as well for you to discover your own. Still, I must warn you not to let the glamour gather too thickly. Brush it off once in a while, and look at the real thing.”

“I’ll remember,” promised Patty. “But we’ll see you again, sooner or later?”

“Oh, yes; I’ll be in Italy before Christmas, and everybody in Italy runs against everybody else, somewhere. Good-by.”

“Good-by,” said Patty, with a kindly politeness, and turned to say the same to Austin Floyd.

“Be sure to go to the Aquarium in Naples,” he reminded her, for the fourteenth time. “The polyps are so pleasantly disgusting, and that fat red starfish is a love. Don’t disgrace your country,—remember you’re Murrican. I shall miss you,—oh, my heart will be as an empty colander! My dolour will be as of one without hope! I shall be as a mullein stalk—but, ’tis better so! Good-by!”

Austin’s melodramatic tone was so absurd that the final good-bys were said amid much laughter, but Patty was conscious of a sincere regret at leaving the gay merriment of Markleham Grange, and its pleasant neighbours.

Next morning the three Fairfields started for London.

Sir Otho and Lady Kitty partly promised to join them later in Italy, but the matter was not fully decided.

Flo Carrington, too, had sent over an early note, excitedly saying that she was not yet sure she could go, but the outlook was extremely hopeful.

Late in the afternoon they reached London, and as they left the train and found themselves in the ponderous bustle of the railway station, going through the usual distracting hunt for their luggage, Patty’s love for the great city came back to her, and she remarked to Nan that she greatly preferred city to country at any time.

“You are a chameleon, Patty,” said Nan, laughing. “I always said you were. Wherever you are, you immediately claim that it’s the best place in the world.”

“And a happy disposition, that is,” broke in Mr. Fairfield. “Though I’m ready to admit that this sitting on one’s trunk, to prevent another citizen from attaching it, is not my idea of luxurious ease.”

However, as always finally happens, a porter performed a great magic, and the party, in cab, drove off to the Savoy. Once again in one of its pleasantest apartments, the dust of travel removed, and tea served, it seemed like getting back home once more.

Mr. Fairfield, having pronounced against a restaurant dinner, had a delightful meal sent up to their own cosy drawing-room, and the three greatly enjoyed their family reunion.

“You people are the best,” declared Patty, as she lingered appreciatively over her somewhat scanty portion of ice cream. “By the way,” she interrupted herself, “I know why in London they always say ‘ice,’ instead of ‘ice cream.’ It’s because they never serve enough of it to justify the longer title, though it’s of the same materials and quite as good as the American variety. Well, as I was saying, you two are the best people I know. I’ve had quite enough of friends, and acquaintances, and hostesses, and staying guests, and all that; I’m glad to be back with my relatives.”

“I’d think more of that, Patty,” said Nan, smiling, “if I weren’t sure that you’d take the first chance that offered to go straying off again.”

“Isn’t she awful, Daddy?” said Patty, placidly. “She doesn’t know a compliment when she sees one. Well, let’s have these empty plates removed, and get out our maps and plans. I’m crazy to see where we’re going.”

“We shan’t have a cast-iron itinerary,” said Mr. Fairfield, as he produced a bundle of maps and time-tables and memoranda. “We’ll leave next Wednesday for Paris, stay there a day or two, if you girls want to shop a little, then when we’re ready, we’ll take the Rome express, right through. After we’re well settled in Rome, and have seen more or less of its sights, we’ll plan what to do next. In a general way, I may say that we’ll go from Rome up to the other principal cities, and back to Rome again. We may decide to spend the whole winter there, but, for my part, I’d be best pleased, that is, if it suits you two, to eat my Christmas dinner in New York City, U. S. A.”

“Me too!” cried Patty, her thoughts suddenly rolling in a homesick wave toward her native land.

“Me too!” cried Nan, enthusiastically, but Mr. Fairfield only smiled, and said:

“We won’t decide that now; we’ll have a fine Italian trip, and it shall be shorter or longer, as suits our pleasure.”

“Dear old Daddy,” said Patty, “you have the most gumption of anybody I know. I’m so glad I picked out a wise father, as well as such a handsome one.”

“I wish you had inherited either trait,” said Mr. Fairfield, with a mock sigh, and Patty answered him only by a saucy glance.

The few days that intervened between their arrival in London and their departure for Paris were busy ones for Nan and Patty. There was some shopping to be done, but this was hurried through that they might have more time to pay farewell visits to some of their favourite haunts.

“But you must get some dresses, Patty,” said Nan, as Patty, declared her intention of spending a day in the picture galleries; “you can’t wear garden-party muslin, and chiffon evening gowns on Italian railroads.”

“Italians don’t have railroads, my ignorant little stepmother; they have railways,—or, more likely they call them by some absurd, unpronounceable name of their own. Well, as I was saying, I’ll get dresses in Paris, but if we’re really going home from Italy, straight to New York, and not coming back here again, there are some ‘loved spots that my infancy knew’ in London, to which I simply must repair once more!”

“All right, girlie; you’ve only four days left in London, so spend them as you like.”

So Patty wandered about as she chose; spending an afternoon in Westminster Abbey, and a morning in the British Museum, and often enjoying a drive in the parks. There were few people whom they knew in London, as most of them were still in their country-places, but the weather was cool and pleasant, and Patty declared she was glad not to be bothered with social engagements.

At last the day came when they must leave for Paris. Trunks were strapped and despatched. Boxes containing various purchases they had made were shipped directly home to New York, and with real tears in her eyes, Patty stood looking out of the hotel window down on the noisy, bustling Strand.

“Cheer up,” said Nan, observing her, “we’ll come back here some day, if not this year.”

“I never thought of that!” exclaimed Patty, as the smiles broke over her face; “why, of course we shall! What a comfort you are, Nan. Why, I shouldn’t wonder if we came over every summer, mayn’t we?”

“Every other summer, perhaps,” said Nan, a little absently, for she was attending to some last matters.

“Come, Patty,” said her father, “the cab’s here. Wave a weeping farewell to your London joys, and turn a smiling face to fresh fields and pastures new.”

“All ready, Father,” said Patty, cheerily, and in a few moments they were off.

At Victoria station they took the train for Dover, and Patty looked from the window as long as it was possible to get glimpses of the great city they were leaving.

To many people the crossing of the English Channel is not a pleasing experience. Nan frankly confessed that she did not care for it at all; but Patty and her father, being blessed with entire freedom from any physical discomfort in the matter, went aboard the Channel steamer with anticipations of a pleasant trip across. The ideal time to sail away from the Dover cliffs is mid-afternoon, when the sunlight dazzles on the white chalk formations, and the green grass and blue water and the pink tints on the rocks all form a beautiful panorama of the brightest colouring possible.

Patty and her father having done all they could to make Nan as comfortable as possible, they left her at her own request in charge of a kind-mannered stewardess, and returned to the upper deck. Here, in two steamer chairs they sat, and watched England disappear.

As they went on, the intrusive spray dashed up on the deck, and finally onto the travellers themselves.

Patty laughed in glee, for her travelling cloak was of staunch material, and she thought the dashing drops great fun. But as the spray flew higher, the deckmaster brought tarpaulins to wrap about them, and thus protected, the two seafarers enjoyed the rough crossing.

“Isn’t it gay!” cried Patty, as a cloud of drops splashed full in her face, making her curly hair curl tighter about her brow.

“Fine!” answered Mr. Fairfield, but he had to scream to make himself heard above the racket of the sea.

As they neared shore, they went below to tidy up for the landing, and found Nan, radiantly smiling, as she awaited them.

“I’m all right now,” she announced, “but I shouldn’t have been, if I’d been pitching and tossing about in the upper air as you have. Goodness! but you’re a sight! Both of you. Can you get wrung out in time to land, do you think?” But in a short time Mr. Fairfield and Patty were transformed into dry and correct-looking citizens, and no sign remained of their watery escapade, save the damp curls that clustered around Patty’s forehead.

CHAPTER V.
DAYS IN PARIS

THE Fairfields spent a few delightful days in Paris. They staid at a large and pleasant hotel, and their rooms looked out upon the Place Vendôme, which was one of Patty’s favourite spots in the French capital.

“I own that column,” she remarked to her father, as they looked out the window at the great shaft with its spiral decorations.

“Indeed!” said Mr. Fairfield; “given to you by the French people, as a token of regard and esteem?”

“Not exactly that,” said Patty. “I own it by right of adoption, or rather, appropriation. All the things I specially like, and that are too big to carry home, I own that way.”

“A fine plan,” commented her father. “And it has the advantage of being a cheap one too. But you must remember this Vendôme column especially, for you’ll see its twin in Rome.”

“Another,—just like it?”

“Not just like it, but similar. The one in Rome is Trajan’s Column, and is of marble. But this one, of masonry, covered with plates of bronze, was constructed in imitation of the Roman one. This, however, is nearly twice as high.”

“Oh, pooh, then I shan’t care for such a little sawed-off thing at all.”

“Wait till you see it,” said her father, laughing. “I think you’ll find it interesting.”

“And is Trajan on top of it, as Napoleon is on this?”

“Trajan was, at first. But he has been replaced by a statue of St. Peter.”

“I’m glad I’m going to see it,” said Patty, contentedly. “I love columns.”

“That’s right, child. Learn to know columns and arches and steps, and you’re fairly started on the road to architecture.”

“Steps!” cried Patty, in surprise, “are steps ever beautiful?”

“Yes, indeed. Don’t you remember I called your attention to them many times in London. Those of the church of St. Martin’s-in-the-Field, for instance.”

“Oh, yes, I remember those—I must look up this matter of steps.”

“I’ll show you plenty in Italy. I’m not going to overburden you, Patty, with instructive lore, but you must acquire a general knowledge of what you’re seeing.”

“Yes, I want to. I don’t want to talk like the people who say, ‘I don’t know a thing about art, but I know what I like.’”

“If you ever express that sentiment, I’ll disown you. Some people invariably like the wrong things.”

“Oh, I know how to find out what’s worth while. You just pick out a most stupid and uninteresting little picture or statue, and then you look in your Baedeker and he tells you it’s the gem of the collection.”

“You’re hopeless!” declared her father. “I wash my hands of you, and you can do your sightseeing in your own way.”

But he well knew she was only jesting, and many a pleasant hour they spent among the art treasures in Paris, while Patty unconsciously absorbed a foundation of true principles of worth and beauty.

The statue of the Venus of Milo was her greatest delight. She never tired of standing in front of it to gaze up into the beautiful face.

“Isn’t it strange,” she said to her father, one day, “that the expression of that face should be so exquisite, so,—so,—well, so perfectly lovely that I can’t stop looking at it; and yet, all the photographs of it are so different. The photographs all make her have a supercilious, ill-natured air, while the real statue is anything but that.”

“I agree with you,” said Nan. “I’ve often noticed it. And the plaster casts, or the bronzes, are not a bit like the original.”

“Of course,” said Mr. Fairfield, “the plaster or bronze of reduced size can’t be expected to be exact portraits, but surely a photograph should give the expression of the original face. For, doubtless, the lady stands still when she has her picture taken.”

“But the pictures aren’t like her,” insisted Patty. “I’ve bought seventeen different photographs of her, including post-cards, and they’re not the leastest mite like that dear face.”

“Seventeen!” exclaimed Mr. Fairfield; “are you going to set up a shop in New York?”

“No, indeed, but I’ve been trying to get a satisfactory picture, and I can’t.”

On their way home Patty asked to stop at a picture shop so she might prove her assertions.

“I’m afraid to go in,” said Mr. Fairfield, as she paused at a small shop on the Rue de Rivoli, “you’ll buy seventeen more, and expect me to pay for them!”

“No, I won’t. Come on in; I know the dealer and he’ll show us his wares.”

The proprietor of the shop was a funny little old Frenchman, who spoke little English. He recognized Patty, and, shaking his head, said “Non, no ones that are new.”

“He means he hasn’t any new photographs of the Venus, since I was here yesterday,” explained Patty, laughing. “But, now, Father, look at these and I’ll show you what I mean.”

Together, they looked at a number of photographs of the celebrated statue, and suddenly Nan exclaimed; “You’re right, Patty! and I know why. It’s because all these photographs are taken from too high a level. We look at the face of the Venus from below, it was made to be looked at that way. But all these photographs have been taken by cameras raised to the level of the statue’s head, or above it, and that foreshortens her face the wrong way. Why, look, in this one you see all the top of her head. Looking at the real statue, you see only the hair above her brow. I can’t explain it exactly, but that’s what makes her expression so different.”

“It is, Nan,” cried Patty, “it makes her upper lip curl, and her nose shrink up!”

“Patty, Patty!” said her father, “don’t use such expressions. But I believe you’re right, Nan, a photograph taken from the same height as our eyes, would give a far different view of the face.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Patty. “Oh, I wish they’d let me take one.”

“They won’t,” said Mr. Fairfield, “so you’ll just have to engrave her on your memory.”

Though they were convinced that their theory was right, they couldn’t persuade the old Frenchman to agree with them. He admitted that the pictures were unlike the expression of the original face, but he shrugged his shoulders and said:

“Many photographs,—many postcards,—but only one orichinal!” And the rapt look in his eyes showed that he, like Patty, preferred his memory of the marble to any possible reproduction of it.

The last day they spent in Paris, Nan declared she was going to buy things.

“We’ll do plenty of sightseeing in Italy,” she said, “but there’s nothing there to buy, except heads of Dante and models of the Roman Forum.”

“And beads,” said Patty. “I’m going to get pecks of beads. Everybody expects you to bring them home a string or two.”

“All right,” said Nan, “but I mean gorgeous raiment. Paris is the only place for that. So, to-day, I buy me some wide-reaching hats, and frippery teagowns and other gewgaws. Want to go, Patsy?”

“’Deed, I do. I adore to buy feathers and frills.”

“You’re two vain butterflies,” said Mr. Fairfield, “but if you’ll excuse me from going with you on this excursion, I’ll agree to pay the bills you send home.”

This was a highly satisfactory arrangement, and the two ladies started out for a round of the shops.

Patty had such good taste, and Nan such good judgment, that they bought only the most desirable things, and a fine collection they made.

“It’s really economy to buy these, Patty,” said Nan, holding up some embroidered waists as sheer and fine as a handkerchief, “for they’re about half the price they cost at home; and as these styles are ahead of ours, they’ll be all right for next summer.”

“Right you are,” said Patty, gaily; “and what we don’t want ourselves will be lovely for Christmas presents. And, oh, Nan, do look at these lace parasols! I’m going to get one for Marian; she’ll be wild over it.”

“No, don’t, Patty; they are exquisite, and would be just the thing for an English garden party. But Marian would never have an opportunity to carry that fluff of lace and chiffon and pink roses.”

“I s’pose not,” said Patty, regretfully. “It would look startling to take to the Tea Cub meetings at Vernondale, and she couldn’t carry it to New York! Well, I’ll leave it, then, and get her a mackintosh or something sensible, instead.”

“No, don’t go to the other extreme,” said Nan, laughing, “get her a hat, if you like, or a feather boa, but get something that the girl can use.”

“Sensible little stepmother,” said Patty, good-naturedly; “You’re always right, and I’m proud to be your friend and partner.”

So the buying went merrily on. Sometimes Patty advised Nan against a combination of colours that didn’t quite harmonise, or a decoration that wasn’t exactly suitable, and Nan gladly deferred to the younger girl’s taste.

“One more farewell glimpse of my Venus, and then I’ll go home,” said Patty, as the afternoon shadows began to lengthen; and telling the cabman to take them to the Louvre, the two went in for a last sight of the statue.

“Isn’t she beautiful!” said Patty, for the fiftieth time. “I know there’ll be nothing in all Italy to compare with her.”

“You can’t know that till you’ve been there,” said practical Nan, and then she had to drag Patty away, and they went back to the hotel. Their purchases were there awaiting them, so quick are the ways of the Paris shops, and they found Mr. Fairfield in the middle of their sitting room completely surrounded by parcels of all shapes and sizes.

“Snowed under!” he declared, as they came in.

Then he good-naturedly helped to untie the bundles, and pack most of them in trunks to be sent directly to America.

“We want to take whatever luggage we need with us,” he said, “but don’t take anything we don’t need. Excess luggage is expensive in Italy, but it’s worth the extra expense if we want it for our convenience or pleasure.”

So each had a good-sized individual trunk, and another trunk held some evening gowns for Nan and Patty, not to be opened except when social occasions required. Still another trunk held indispensable odds and ends that belonged to all of them, and Mr. Fairfield said that was enough to look after.

“You’re lovely people to travel with,” said Patty, thoughtfully. “When I came over here with the Farringtons, they had forty-’leven trunks, and they never could find what they wanted without going through the whole lot.”

“Much better to get along with a few,” said her father, “and then you can find things more easily.”

Mr. Fairfield was a systematic and methodical man, and had always instilled these traits into both Patty and Nan. So they were always ready at traintime or a little before, and thus were saved the many annoyances that follow in the train of delay and procrastination.

The next afternoon they started for Rome. Mr. Fairfield chose to go by the “Rome Express” a rapid and well-appointed train. Patty was greatly interested in the strange appointments of the cars. The Fairfields had two compartments; the larger, double one for the use of Patty and Nan, the other for Mr. Fairfield. But at first they all sat together in the double compartment, which was arranged like a state-room, and not at all like American sleeping-cars. They would be on the train two nights and one day, and Mr. Fairfield chose this plan because it enabled them to see the Alps by daylight.

“It’s just like being in our own house, isn’t it?” said Patty, as they settled their belongings into place. And indeed it was. Shut away from the other passengers in their cosy little room, they were as secluded as if at home. The comfortable seats and convenient little tables, racks and shelves, made room for all their impedimenta, and Patty declared it was lots nicer than American parlour cars, where everybody was in the same room.

“Though, of course, you can take a drawing-room,” said Nan.

“Yes, if you’re a millionaire,” said Patty. “But this is fixed so everybody can be by themselves.”

“Would you rather have your dinner served in here?” asked her father.

“No; I’d rather go to the dining-car. I want to see more of my fellow-travellers. There may be brigands on board. I always think of Italy as peopled with brigands.”

“What are they like?” asked Nan, idly.

“Oh, they have big cowboy hats, and red silk sashes, and awful black beards, and they carry cutlasses.”

“Those are pirates,” suggested her father.

“Oh, yes, so they are. Well, my brigands carry revolvers.”

“Oh, no,” said Nan, laughing; “not revolvers; you might as well give them tomahawks. Brigands in Italy carry stilettos, of course.”

“Stilettos!” cried Patty, in amazement. “They’re what you use in embroidery work.”

“Well, you are an ignorant young person,” declared Mr. Fairfield. “An Italian stiletto is a small dagger or poniard.”

“Poniard! that’s it!” exclaimed Patty. “No well-conducted brigand would carry anything but a poniard. Do you suppose there are many on the train, father?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure. But we’ll go to dinner now, and if there are any we’ll scrape acquaintance with them.”

So to the dining-car they went, and Patty cast discreet but curious glances in at the doors of the other compartments as she passed them.

She saw no brigands, and among the passengers were not many Italians. They all seemed to be people of their own stamp, probably travelling on the same kind of a trip.

The dining-car was comfortable and well-lighted. The tables on one side held four people, and on the other side, each was arranged for two. The Fairfields sat at a quartette table, and as no one occupied the fourth seat, they were pleasantly by themselves again.

It was Patty’s first introduction to Italian cookery, and she was much interested in the strange dishes.

The spaghetti, though very good, was served in such large quantities that she was amazed.

“Does anyone ever eat a whole portion?” she said.

But she noticed that many of the diners did do so, and indeed she made large inroads on her own share.

“It’s fine!” she said. “I did not know it could be so good.”

“On its native heath, spaghetti is quite different from an American arrangement of it,” said her father. “I’m glad you like it, for you’ll have very few meals without it all the time you’re in Italy.” The other viands were good, too, and the variety of cheeses and fruits was positively bewildering.

“How different from an English or French meal,” said Patty, as they finished. “Isn’t it interesting, the different things that different countries eat. Do you suppose that’s what makes them the sort of people they are?”

“Your question is a little ambiguous,” laughed her father, “but it doesn’t always seem logical. For instance, you’d scarcely think this innocent spaghetti would produce a race of ferocious brigands, such as you’re expecting to meet. By the way do you see any?”

“Not one,” said Patty, as she glanced round the car. “I’m fearfully disappointed.”

“Don’t give up hope yet. Perhaps they’re lying in ambush somewhere, and they’ll hold up the train in the night.”

After the long dinner, there was not much evening left, so our travellers soon concluded they were ready for their rest.

“Don’t be afraid,” said Mr. Fairfield, as he left the two ladies, to go to his own sleeping berth. “I don’t believe there’s a bad-tempered brigand on the train.”

“I don’t either,” said Patty, “so I shan’t lie awake in shivering terror.”

Soon she and Nan were sleeping quietly in the funny, narrow beds that were so like shelves, and the next thing Patty knew was a knocking at the door of the compartment.

She was awake in an instant and shook the sleeping Nan.

“Wake up,” she whispered, “there’s a brigand knocking at the door.”

“Nonsense!” said Nan, rubbing her eyes, “what do you mean?” The knock was repeated and Nan jumped up.

“What shall we do?” she said. “Perhaps we’d better not answer at all.”

But the knocks became more peremptory, and throwing on a kimono, Nan went to the door, and without opening it, said, “Who’s there?”

“Open the door,” said a commanding voice.

“It is a brigand!” said Patty, hopping about on one foot. “Where are your jewels, Nan?”

“Your father has them. Don’t be silly, Patty; of course it isn’t a brigand, but who can it be? Perhaps Fred is ill.”

As the knocking continued, and as the voice kept on demanding that the door be opened, Nan opened it cautiously and saw before her a big burly man in an official uniform.

“Sorry to disturb you, ma’am,” he said, “but have you any luggage in your room?”

“No,” said Nan, “only hand luggage.”

“How many trunks in the luggage-car?” he went on, and Nan told him.

“Anything dutiable in them?”

“Why, I don’t know. What is dutiable?”

“Spirits or tobacco, ma’am.”

“Why, no! Of course we haven’t any of those things in our trunks.”

“Any matches?”

“No.”

“Thank you. Good night, madam. Sorry to trouble you.”

The big man went away, and Patty tumbled back to bed, murmuring:

“Huh, to be waked up and bothered, and then not see a brigand after all! I do think the customs men might at least wear red silk sashes. They’d be so much more picturesque. What a queer time for him to come to see about the trunks.”

“I believe they always come when we cross the border,” said Nan, sleepily. “Good-night.”

“Good-night,” said Patty.

CHAPTER VI
THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME

IT was very early in the morning when the train pulled into the station at Rome. Patty had been up and dressed for some time, watching from the window the strange views and novel sights.

“Here we are,” said Mr. Fairfield, and Patty hurried from the train in her eager interest to see the real Rome outside of a map or guidebook.

“Well!” she said, as she found herself in a great station, not so very unlike railroad stations in other countries, “Well! if you call this picturesque, I don’t!”

“Nothing can be picturesque when you’re hungry,” said Nan, “and I’m going to get my breakfast before I express my opinion of the Eternal City.”

“Good girl, Nan!” said Mr. Fairfield, approvingly. “And I fancy Patty, too, is ready for some Roman breakfast food.”

“I am hungry,” said Patty, “but I’m so surprised at this place! Why!” she went on, as they emerged into the great square in front of the station, “look at the trolley-cars! It’s just like New York!”

“You needn’t get in a trolley-car,” said Mr. Fairfield, laughing at Patty’s dismayed expression; “here’s the omnibus that’s to take us to our hotel. Hop in.”

“Pooh! an omnibus!” said Patty, “that isn’t appropriate to Rome, either!”

“I know what you want to ride in,” said her father. “One of those Roman chariots drawn by four horses, that they race round the ring in, at the circus.”

“Those rattlety-bang things?” said Patty, laughing at the recollection. “Yes, they would be all right, only there’s so much danger of spilling out behind.”

But she climbed into the omnibus with the others and in less than five minutes they were round the corner, and stopping at their own hotel. Mr. Fairfield had selected the Quirinal, as a comfortable and convenient home for them, and when Patty went in, and saw the handsomely appointed halls and picturesque winter-garden, she said, “This is better than trolley-cars, but it isn’t so very Roman, after all.”

“You may as well get rid of your ideas of ancient Rome,” said Mr. Fairfield. “There is a little of that left, but most of the Rome you’ll have to do with is decidedly twentieth century, and very much up-to-date.”

“I believe you!” said Patty, as she noticed the fashionably attired ladies about, and the modern appliances everywhere.

Then they were taken to their rooms, and Patty exclaimed with delight at the pleasant apartment reserved for them.

“At last I’ve found something different,” she cried. “This isn’t a bit like our apartments in London or Paris. Oh, Nan, do see this gorgeous gold furniture in our drawing-room! I’m sure the Queen has lent it for our use while we’re here!”

“Grand, but stuffy,” declared Nan, as she threw off her travelling cloak.

“I like it,” said Patty; “it’s the first effect of Roman luxury I’ve seen. Do we lie on couches to eat, father?”

“You may if you like, my dear; though I believe it isn’t done much this year, in the best circles.”

Patty went on exploring, and was greatly pleased with the novelty of her new surroundings. There was a grand drawing-room, furnished with heavy velvet hangings and carpets; massive furniture, carved, gilded and upholstered in rich brocatelles; immense crystal chandeliers; elaborate mirrors, pictures and bric-à-brac; and a profusion of palms, statuettes, footstools and sofa pillows.

From this opened a small breakfast-room, also lavishly decorated and furnished. The bed-rooms, dressing-rooms, and baths were all in harmonious style, and after a tour of the rooms, Patty declared herself quite satisfied with the modern Roman notions of living.

“And only think,” said Mr. Fairfield, “the price we pay for all this gorgeousness is not so much as we paid for far simpler accommodations in Paris or London either.”

“Oh, let’s live in Rome always, then,” cried Patty, enthusiastically, “I love it already.”

“Goose-girl!” exclaimed Nan, laughing at her raptures; “go and freshen yourself up, get into a comfortable gown, and then we’ll have some breakfast.”

Half an hour later the family gathered in their own breakfast-room, and a delightful meal was served them there.

Patty and Nan, in pretty house dresses, welcomed the delicious fruits and daintily-cooked eggs, and the coffee was pronounced better than that of Paris.

“And as to London,” said Nan, “they spell coffee, T, e, a.”

“So they do,” said Patty, with a wry face at the recollection of London coffee. “Give me Rome, every time!”

“There’s this difference, too,” said Mr. Fairfield, “you girls will have to readjust your mode of living a little. In Paris, nobody gets around till noon, and then they call luncheon breakfast. While here, people get up and out fairly early, in order to utilize the morning hours, which are the best of the day. Then they come back and stay indoors during the middle of the day; luncheon is promptly at twelve, for that reason; and stay in the house till three or four o’clock, then go out again if you like for the sunset hours.”

“How funny!” said Patty. “Luncheon at twelve is very early.”

“When you’re in Rome you must do as the Romans do,” said her father, “and now I’ve told you what that is. But to-day, you two are not going out at all, at least not until four o’clock this afternoon. You must rest this morning, and then, at four, I’ll take you out for a drive. We’re not going to do a lot of sightseeing in a rush, and get all tired out. We’re here for pleasure, and we must take it slowly, or we can’t really enjoy it.”

“I’m agreeable,” declared Patty. “I can spend the day beautifully, unpacking my trunk, and wandering about this hotel, and taking a nap, and chattering with my stepmother, and lots of things. What are you going to do, Daddy?”

“I’m going out to engage a Roman chariot for you to ride about in, and to have the trolley-cars stopped, and the railroad station made over on a more antique plan.”

“Oh, don’t bother about the station. I shan’t need it again till I go home, so let it remain as it is.”

“Very well, then; now you two be ready when I come back at noon, and we’ll lunch downstairs.”

Mr. Fairfield went away, and Patty and Nan went to their work of unpacking.

Patty was of an orderly nature, and really enjoyed putting her things neatly away in the wardrobes and drawers, of which there were plenty. She was accustomed to wait on herself, and so declined the offers of help from the willing but unintelligible maid who spoke no English.

“I suppose you’re offering to help me,” said Patty, smiling at her, “but I can’t speak Italian, and I’d rather do things myself anyway.”

The little maid did not quite understand the words, but she gathered Patty’s meaning, and tripped away to make similar offers to Nan. Nan couldn’t talk Italian either, but she was inclined to have help, so, by the aid of smiles and gestures, she quite made herself understood and her rooms were soon in order.

“What a mess!” she exclaimed, as a couple of hours later she went to Patty’s room and found that young woman in the midst of a sea of dresses, hats, slippers, and toilet accessories of all sorts.

“A lovely mess,” returned Patty, placidly. “I’ll soon straighten it out. But I never could do it, with a Choctaw-speaking Roman trying to jabber out help.”

“Lucretia isn’t Choctaw; we understood each other perfectly, without words, and she’s an awfully well-trained maid.”

“Is her name Lucretia? Is she of the old Borgia crowd? Now, she’ll murder us in our sleep!”

“Like your brigand did! Patty, you’ll never get these clothes put away. I’ll help you.”

So, working together, the room was soon tidy, and Patty had the satisfaction of knowing that all her belongings were put away in proper order.

“I like them so I can put my hand on anything I want in the dark,” she said to Nan. “Though, indeed, it’s rarely I want my books or sewing materials in the dark. Or my best hat, for that matter. What would be the use of one’s best hat in the dark? Nobody could see it!”

But she easily found the clothes she did want, and when Mr. Fairfield returned, he found two very correct looking ladies, in fresh white costumes, ready to go to luncheon with him.

“I’ve good news for you,” he said, after they were seated at table; “I ran across Jim Leland, and he’s living here in Rome, and he proposes to make it pleasant for us in lots of ways while we’re here.”

“That’s lovely,” said Nan; “it’s always pleasant to know somebody who lives in a place. Who’s he, Fred?”

“I used to know him twenty years ago, but haven’t seen him since. He’s a bachelor, and has the reputation of being somewhat of a recluse, but I know he’ll be genial and hospitable where we’re concerned. He and I are good chums, though we don’t meet often. He has asked us to dine with him some night, and I’ve accepted for us all on Monday. I suppose you’ve no other engagement, Patty?”

“Not unless the King asks me informally to dinner,” she replied. “Where does Mr. Leland live?”

“Not far away. Just across the street, in fact. He has bachelor apartments, where he has lived for years, I believe.”

They lingered over their pleasant luncheon, and then strolled out to the beautiful garden at the back of the hotel.

Here there were no flowers, but palms and strange tropical plants in great variety. So dense was the foliage in some places that Patty called it a jungle, and appropriating a wicker chair, declared her intention of remaining there to read for a while.

“Do as you choose until four,” said her father, “and then your Roman chariot will await you.”

The Roman chariot proved to be a low, comfortable open carriage, that Mr. Fairfield had engaged to be at their disposal during their whole stay in Rome.

As they started off on their first drive round the city, Patty asked where they were going.

“Not to many places to-day,” said her father. “Just a drive to the Pincio, and to get a bird’s-eye view of the city. But keep your eyes open, for this drive will always remain in your memory.”

And it did. Patty never forgot that first afternoon in Rome. She almost held her breath as they drove rather slowly along the streets, and her ideas formed and changed and fled so swiftly that she scarcely could be said to have any.

Her conversation was limited to gasps of surprise and delight, exclamations of awe and wonder, and little squeals of glee and merriment.

At last she recognised one thing at least, and cried out, “Oh, isn’t that Trajan’s Column? It’s just like the Column Vendôme.”

“Good for you,” said her father, “to recognise it. Yes, that’s it, and next to it you may see Trajan’s Forum.”

“Not a very big one,” said Patty, a little disappointed, “but very tidy and set in neat rows.”

“Well, the columns weren’t just like that to begin with,” said Mr. Fairfield, “but they’ve been set up in straight rows since.”

They went on for some distance, and then, at a word from Mr. Fairfield, the driver paused and stopped at a point that commanded a fine view of the Coliseum.

Patty first sat and looked at it. Indeed, they all sat silent, looking at the great structure, as its wonderful lines stood out against the blue sky.

“I didn’t think it was like that,” said Patty, at last. “I’ve seen pictures of it, but, well, I don’t think it takes a good picture!”

“No, it doesn’t,” agreed Mr. Fairfield. “No photograph or painting of the Coliseum can give the least idea of the calm sublimity of the building itself.”

They drove round it, Patty becoming more and more deeply interested at every step; but Mr. Fairfield said they would not go inside that day, as he had other plans.

So they went on, under the great arch of Constantine, and at this Patty was again dumb with awed admiration.

“How big the things are,” she said.

“And how old,” added Nan, greatly impressed with the ancient monuments.

Then they drove round by the Roman Forum. This was altogether too much, and she gazed at it, with such a helpless expression on her face that Mr. Fairfield laughed at her.

“Drive on,” he said to the man; “we’ll see the Forum some other time. Well, Patty, my child, is Rome antique enough, or is it all trolley-cars and railroad stations?”

“Oh, Father,” said Patty, and because of a queer lump in her throat, she couldn’t talk in her usual merry fashion.

“There, there, dearie, don’t take it too seriously. I want you to love it all, but don’t let it break you up so.”

“I can’t help it,” said Patty, laughing as she wiped her eyes with her handkerchief; “it’s so big,—so—so——”

“So overpowering,—yes, I know. But that’s why I want you to get used to it by degrees. Now, we’ll go through some beautiful gardens, and on to the Pincio.”

Away they went along the Corso Umberto, and passed many statues, villas, buildings, fountains, and arches, but none of them so impressed Patty as the ancient ruins had done.

“Why is it,” she asked her father, “that the ruins are so much more impressive than the complete buildings?”

“That’s partly glamour,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye, for he remembered what Patty had told him of Mr. Homer’s remarks on glamour.

“And partly what else?” she asked.

“Partly the grandeur of the monuments themselves. If you hadn’t been affected at the sight of the Coliseum I should have packed you back to New York by the first boat.”

“And I should have deserved to go,” said Patty, decidedly. “I give you both fair warning,—the first thing I do every morning while I’m in Rome is to go straight to the Coliseum and hug it. After that I’ll go to see the other sights.”

“Can you reach all the way around it?” asked Nan, smiling.

“Don’t be too literal,” said Patty, smiling back. “I shall only hug it figuratively, but, oh, I do love it! The Venus of Milo has a rival in my affections. No, not a rival, exactly, for they’re too different to be compared. But they’re both my favourite statues.”

“That’s one way to put it,” laughed her father. “But here we are on the top of the Pincian Hill. Will you get out and have some cakes and ices?”

They did so, and Patty found it delightful to sit at one of the little tables under the trees, and have a Roman afternoon tea. There were a great many people about, some of whom looked like Americans, and Patty noticed two or three who belonged in their own hotel.

“Shall we get acquainted with any of the people at the hotel?” she asked.

“Yes, I think so,” Nan answered. “There are some people from Philadelphia there, whom I know slightly. I think I’ll look them up to-morrow.”

“Oh, of course we’ll make acquaintances, sooner or later,” said Mr. Fairfield.

“The Coliseum is chum enough for me,” said Patty, with a dreamy look. “I don’t care for anybody else.”

“Glamour has hit you hard,” said her father; “we’d better be going home and give you a change of scene.”

CHAPTER VII
AMERICAN FRIENDS AND OTHERS

“SHE’S coming!” announced Patty, as the family sat at luncheon some days later.

“Who’s coming?” asked Nan, looking up from her own letters. They were all reading their mail, which usually arrived about midday.

“Why, Flo Carrington, and her governess, whom she always calls ‘Snippy.’ I don’t know What the lady’s real name is.”

“Good!” said Mr. Fairfield. “I’ll be glad for you to have a young companion, and Madame Snippy can probably look after you both.”

“Or Flo and I can look after her,” observed Patty. “I’ve never met the lady, but I think she goes around with her nose in a book. I’ve always heard of her widespread knowledge of all sorts.”

“That will be a good thing for you,” said her father. “You’re not overburdened with booklore, and though this is a pleasure trip for you, I hope you’ll acquire some information that will stay by you.”

“There’s one thing sure,” said Patty; “as soon as I get home, I’m going to take up a course of Roman history. It never seemed interesting to me before, but now I know I shall like it.”

“I’m with you,” said Nan. “We’ll be a class all by ourselves, and read every morning, after we’re back in New York.”

“And then, you see, Father,” went on Patty, “I can remember all these things I’m seeing now, and, before you know it, I’ll be a great scholar.”

“I’m not alarmed at the idea of your becoming a blue-stocking. Indeed, I doubt if your interest remains after you’ve left these actual scenes.”

“Oh, yes, it will! I want to study up all about the early Christian martyrs and the cruel emperors. I’m sure it will be most interesting. You see, Flo knows it all. She has all history at her tongue’s end. And she knows all about the great works of art and everything.”

“Can she recite the names of the twelve ‘world-pictures’?” asked Nan, smiling.

“Oh, she doesn’t know it that way! No ‘Half Hours with the Best Artists,’ for hers! She really knows, and she’s so unostentatious about it.”

“Then she’ll be a good chum for you. Are they coming here? And when?”

“Yes, Father. They’ve engaged rooms here, on the same floor as ours, and they’ll arrive next week. Oh, I’m so glad. I can go around a lot with them, and that will leave you and Nan to flock by yourselves. Won’t you be lonesome?”

“If we are, we’ll tag after you,” said Nan. “Patty, I think that I’ll introduce ourselves to those people over there. They’re the Van Winkles from Philadelphia, and I met Mrs. Van Winkle some years ago, though she may not remember me. But I think she does, for she has smiled pleasantly two or three times.”

“All right, Nan. I’ll go with you. Let’s go right after luncheon, if they stop in the winter-garden, as they probably will. Daddy can make himself invisible behind a newspaper until we call him into the game.”

So, as they rose from the table and passed through the winter-garden, which was also a favourite lounging-place at all seasons of the year, they found the Van Winkles had paused there, and were having their coffee at a small table.

Nan soon discovered that Mrs. Van Winkle did indeed remember her, and that they were all glad to become better acquainted. Mr. Fairfield was summoned to join the group, and a pleasant hour followed. The Van Winkle family consisted of the father and mother, also a son and daughter. Patty liked the young people, and was much amused to learn that the young man, whom his sister called Lank, was really named Lancaster. The girl’s name was Violet, and she explained that she chose it herself because it went so well with Van Winkle.

“I really had no name until I was about ten,” she said. “They always called me Birdie or Tottie, or some foolish pet name. But I liked Violet, so I just took it.”

“It’s a pretty name,” said Patty, with amiable intent, “and Lancaster is a pretty name, too.”

“Yes,” said Violet, “but we call him Lank, because he’s so fat and stuffy.”

He was a stout young man, and of a very good-natured countenance. He seemed to admire Patty, and soon they all fell into easy conversation.

“Have you been here long?” asked Patty.

“Nearly a month,” said Violet. “We were thinking of going on next week, but now that we’ve met you I’d like to stay longer.”

“I hope you will,” said Patty, cordially. “I’ve a friend coming in a few days, and I know we could all have a good time together. I love a lot of people, don’t you?”

“I do, if they pull together,” said Lank. “But if you start out sight-seeing with a bunch of people, they never all want to go to the same place at the same time.”

“I suppose that’s so,” said Patty, “but I’ve only my father and mother in my party at present, and we go together, of course. But I’ve not seen much yet. We’ve only been here a few days, and I’ve spent most of the time in the Coliseum and Roman Forum. I do love them so, and I go there expecting to study out the ruins and columns, and then I forget all about studying, and just wander about, thinking of the old Romans who used to be there.”

“That’s what I do!” exclaimed Lank. “I’m mad about the Forum, and I just shuffle around it with my tongue out, sort of lapping it up.”

“He does!” said Violet, laughing. “You ought to see him. He looks like an idiot.”

“I’d rather look like an idiot than a tourist,” said Lancaster, a little resentfully.

“Don’t worry,” said Patty. “I’m sure you don’t look the least like a tourist. I know you don’t keep one forefinger stuck into a Baedeker, and the other pointing.”

“No, I don’t. But,” and the boy’s eyes twinkled, “I carry a pack of postcards instead of a Baedeker!”

“Good for you!” cried Patty. “I love postcards too.”

“They’re so useful,” said Violet, “to direct your cabman where to go. The cabmen never talk English, but if you show a postcard, they take you right to the place. Go out with us to-morrow, won’t you, and let’s visit the Forum together?”

“Indeed I will,” said Patty, “I’d love to. But I suppose I must start in on the churches pretty soon. I’ll admire them, I expect, but I know they won’t take hold of me as the ruins do.”

“So the ruins have caught you, have they?” said a deep voice behind Patty’s chair, and turning quickly, she saw Peter Homer, smiling down at her.

“Mr. Homer!” she cried, delightedly, as she jumped up to greet him.

“I told you I’d appear sooner or later,” he said, smiling at her surprise.

“And I’m glad you came as soon as you did!” she replied merrily, and then she introduced him to the Van Winkles, and Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield added their welcome.

“I’m just here on one of my wonder-wanders,” said Mr. Homer, by way of explaining his sudden appearance. “Every few years I run down to Rome, and wander about, wondering. It’s a most satisfying occupation, and I never tire of it.”

“That’s a good expression,” said Patty, thoughtfully. “I believe I’d rather wander around and wonder, than to know it all.”

“It’s a whole lot easier,” said Lank Van Winkle. “Lets you out of a lot of study.”

“And gives you equally good results,” said Mr. Homer. “A short cut and a merry one, is my creed, to knowledge or across a street, or wherever possible.”

“You don’t seem to pursue that plan in your twenty-volume book,” said Patty, smiling.

“Oh, my book? That’s intended for other people, so I can’t consult my own inclinations in the matter. But when I’m away on my wanderings and wonderings, I try to forget those twenty volumes, and pretend I’m entirely carefree.”

“That’s right,” said Mr. Van Winkle, approvingly; “when you take a vacation, take it thoroughly. That’s what I’m doing. I’ve forgotten that I have a business office in the United States, and I’ve become, temporarily, a Roman citizen. Are you staying at this hotel, Mr. Homer?”

“No; my fate decrees an humbler home. But I’m comfortably housed only a few blocks away, and I shall hope to see you all again. Now, I must pursue my wanderings, as I have an engagement shortly. By the way, Miss Fairfield, did you know your friend Floyd Austin is on his way here?”

“Really?” said Patty; “how delightful. We can have a Roman reunion, for Miss Carrington is coming too.”

“Yes, I know it. And Caddy Oram is with Austin. We must have a meeting of the clan soon.”

“We will,” said Patty; “I’ll invite you all to tea as soon as Flo arrives, and we’ll have a lovely time.”

“Don’t you always have a lovely time?” asked Peter Homer, as he said good-by to Patty.

“Yes, indeed,” she replied. “And in Rome, who could help it?”

“No one with eyes,” he said; “and which has pleased you more, so far, the glamour or the ruins?”

Patty thought a moment.

“I can’t distinguish them,” she said, at last. “They’re so mixed up with each other, and both so wonderful.”

Mr. Homer smiled. “That’s as it should be,” he said. “But if I may, I’d like to wonder at little with you. What are you doing to-morrow morning?”

“Going to the Forum with the two Van Winkles,” answered Patty. “Won’t you go with us?”

“I’ll be glad to. Suppose I meet you here at ten o’clock.”

“Do. That will be fine. I’ve only just met the Van Winkles, but I like them already.”

“Yes, they’re attractive people,” said Mr. Homer, a little absently, and then he went away.

Although Peter Homer was only about twenty-five, and the Van Winkles were near Patty’s age, he seemed much older than the other three. Patty realised this, and attributed it to his really serious and scholarly nature, which he hid behind his pretence of taking everything lightly. She liked the man very much, for he was most interesting and amusing, but he sometimes had a preoccupied air which made Patty feel young and ignorant.

“Well, he can go with us to-morrow,” she thought, “and if he thinks we’re not wise enough for him, he needn’t go again.”

It was the evening they were to dine at Mr. Leland’s, and Patty looked forward with pleasure to a visit to a real Roman home.

“Of course,” she said to Nan, “I don’t mean ancient Roman. I’ve learned better than to look for couches instead of dining chairs; but I think it will be fun to see how an American lives in Rome.”

So Patty ran away to her room to dress for the dinner party.

She chose a white chiffon, with a round, low-cut neck, and a skirt that billowed into soft frills, and to it she added a beautiful Roman sash that she had bought that very day.

She was peacocking up and down in front of the long mirror, when Nan came in.

“I suppose I’m too grown up to wear a Roman sash,” said Patty, looking over her shoulder at the soft silk ends, with their knotted fringe; “but the colours are so lovely, and it seems appropriate.”

“By all means wear it, if you like,” said Nan; “it’s a beautiful one; and anyway, I don’t suppose Mr. Leland will know a sash from a redingote.”

Patty laughed at this, and concluded to wear her sash.

“You’ll be wasted on him, then,” she added, “for you do look bewitching in that mauve tulle.”

Nan did look lovely in her pretty evening gown, and Mr. Fairfield had reason to feel proud of the two distinguished-looking ladies he escorted downstairs.

“Don’t bother with that ridiculous elevator,” said Patty, as she led the way to the staircase. “I think its rheumatism is bad to-day. It grunts fearfully, and limps like everything.”

“It never seems well on Mondays,” said Nan, sympathetically. “I think it’s overworked, poor thing.”

“Overworked!” put in Mr. Fairfield; “it makes about three round trips each day.”

“I like better to walk down, anyway,” said Patty. “These staircases are so red velvety, and white marble-y, and gold-banister-y.” And with a hop, skip, and jump, she landed on the lower hall floor.

“Behave yourself, Patty,” admonished Nan. “Don’t jump around like an infant, even if you are wearing a little girl’s sash.”

“I’ve learned,” said Patty, with an air of great wisdom, “that an American young woman in Rome may do anything she chooses, and she is excused just because she’s Murrican.”

“Don’t you believe it,” said her father. “You behave yourself properly, or you can’t go dining out with your elders again.”

“Then you can’t go,” cried irrepressible Patty, “for you can’t leave me alone, either!”

But Patty’s manners were really above reproach, and it was a most correctly behaved American girl who entered Mr. Leland’s drawing-room. That gentleman proved to be a man of about Mr. Fairfield’s age, and he was delighted to welcome guests from his native land.

“To humour my health,” he said, “I have lived in Rome for many years, but my heart is still true to the old flag, and I wish I might go back and live beneath its red, white, and blue.”

“But wouldn’t you hate to give up all this splendour?” asked Patty, glancing about at the unusually fine apartment.

“Yes and no,” replied Mr. Leland, smiling. “I’ve collected my household gods with great care, and they wouldn’t bear transplanting to America, but still my native heath calls loudly to me at times.”

“Why couldn’t you take all these beautiful things home with you?” asked Nan.

“I could; but they wouldn’t feel at home in an American house. Imagine these rooms transported bodily to New York. They would appear bizarre and over-ornate, while here they are neither.”

“That’s one reason I love Rome,” said Patty, enthusiastically; “it’s all red velvet, and carved gold frames, and marble filigree-work, and heavy tapestries, and mosaic floors,—oh, I adore it!”

“You’ve a barbaric love of colour,” said Mr. Leland, smiling, “unusual in a young American girl. But you must remember that all this colour and gilding is only right under the blue and gold of the Italian sky. In New York it would be a jarring note.”

Patty sighed unconsciously, for she began to realise there was a great deal to know, of which she was entirely ignorant.

“Don’t take it too seriously, child,” said Mr. Leland, reading her thought. “Remember I’ve spent twenty years learning these things, and you’ve not even begun yet. I’m sure your natural instincts are fairly true; all you need is instruction and experience. Have you seen St. Peter’s?”

“Yes,” said Patty, “but I’ve only bowed to it. I haven’t shaken hands with it yet. But I know one thing about it. Somebody told me. It’s baroque.”

Mr. Leland smiled, and said, not at all unkindly:

“Whoever told you that was utterly ignorant of the real meaning of baroque. In no sense does it apply to St. Peter’s. That church, my dear child, if anybody asks you, is flubdubby.”

“Is what?” exclaimed Patty.

“Flubdubby in the extreme. I may say it’s pure flubdub. If you want to impress any one with your knowledge of architecture, say that, and you’ll hit the nail on the head.”

Patty was almost afraid her host was making fun of her, but his earnest manner proved he was not.

“We won’t go into details, now,” he said, “but some day I’ll take you there, and show you what I mean.”

Dinner was served then, and Patty went into a dining-room that made her feel as if she had been transplanted to China itself. It was really a remarkable room. The walls were hung with marvellous satin embroideries that had belonged to the Empress Dowager of China; and the screens and chairs were covered with the same exquisite handiwork. Bronzes and pottery of rare values were everywhere, and all of the dinner service was of porcelain, silver, and gold, that had once graced the tables in royal palaces.

Patty was so enraptured, looking at the beautiful and curious things, she had no appetite for the viands that were offered her by soft-footed, swift-motioned Celestials.

“You are more susceptible to beauty and colour than any one I ever saw, Miss Fairfield,” said her host, after he had covertly watched Patty’s shining eyes.

“She is,” declared her father. “From a child she has loved pretty things, and she has a perfect passion for bright colour.”

“But always with a good sense of colour values,” put in Nan, lest Mr. Leland should think Patty a little barbarian.

“I’m sure of that,” he said, kindly; “and I shall hope, Miss Fairfield, to have the pleasure of showing you some of the most beautiful things in Rome, which are not shown, except to appreciative eyes.”

Patty’s appreciative eyes danced at this, for she knew Mr. Leland was a man of influence, and could take her to many places where strangers were not usually allowed.

After dinner a delightful evening was spent viewing the treasures collected by their host on his many trips to Oriental countries, and Patty became more and more awed at his extensive knowledge of the art works of all ages and countries.

“I don’t see how you remember it all,” she said, looking at him earnestly. “I should think you’d have to have a head as big as the Coliseum, and,—you haven’t!”

“No one can have the ‘big head,’” said Mr. Leland, smiling, “when he realises the great minds and great geniuses who have produced these wonderful things.”

“No,” said Patty, “and I can’t even appreciate it. I can only wonder.”

CHAPTER VIII
PLAYING HOUSE

IT was a merry party of four that started off next morning to visit the Roman Forum.

In the spacious, open carriage Patty and Violet sat facing Lancaster and Mr. Homer, and they drove slowly through the streets of Rome, remarking their favourite points of interest on either side.

“First, let’s go and hug the Coliseum,” said Patty, so they went in that direction.

“Want to go in?” asked Peter Homer, as they approached the entrance.

“No, not to-day,” said Patty. “I’ll just give it a good squeeze, so it will know I haven’t forgotten it.”

Patty spread her arms toward the great structure, her blue eyes filled with loving affection.

“I hope your somewhat dilapidated friend appreciates your devotion,” remarked Peter, smiling at Patty’s fervour.

“It isn’t dilapidated!” she retorted. “It has only just reached perfection.”

“The perfection of old age,” said Violet. “I love it, too, but I’m not as idiotic about it as Patty. I see its defects.”

“I don’t,” insisted Patty, stoutly, “for it hasn’t any.”

“Good for you,” cried Lank. “That’s true loyalty, not to see the imperfections of your friends, whether they have any or not. But here’s the Forum, fairly running to meet us.”

“Oh, isn’t it great!” exclaimed Patty, as she looked eagerly at the picturesque ruins standing out sharply against the blue Italian sky.

“What was the Forum for, in the first place?” asked Violet.

“In earliest times it was a market-place,” said Peter, “but later——”

“Oh,” broke in the irrepressible Patty, “then, I suppose, this little Roman went to market, this little Roman staid home.”

“But no little Roman had roast beef,” said Lank. “At least, I suppose they might have done so, but it doesn’t seem appropriate.”

“They had it, I’m sure,” said Violet, “but under a different name. Didn’t they, Mr. Homer?”

“Probably. They seemed to have everything that was good to eat,—and some things that weren’t.”

As the party intended to spend the whole morning in the Forum, they dismissed their cab at the entrance.

“Now,” said Peter Homer, as they went down among the ruins, “we won’t have any maps or guidebooks, we’ll just wander around and wonder.”

“But you know what all the ruins are, don’t you?” asked Patty.

“Oh, yes; I know the names of the temples and things. I’ll tell you those as we come to them. This noble collection of pedestals was once the Basilica Julia.”

“Let’s play house,” said Patty, promptly. “I’ll be Julia, and live here. I’d love to be a Roman matron.”

“But the Julia in question wasn’t a Roman matron,” said Peter; “in fact, this basilica was named in honour of Mr. Julius Cæsar.”

“Oh,” said Patty, “and they called him Julia as a pet name, I suppose. How sweet of them!”

“We can play house just the same,” said Violet. “I’ll live in the temple of Saturn; it’s roomy and well ventilated. What do you choose, Mr. Homer?”

“I’ll live under the arch of Septimius Severus. It’s not so large, but it’s roofed in case of rain.”

“The Temple of Vespasian, for mine,” said Lank. “It isn’t in very good repair, but perhaps the landlord will fix it up; and anyway, I’ll be near sister, if she wants me.”

And so these four ridiculous young people went to their chosen abodes.

Patty surveyed the wide expanse of her house with satisfaction, and then taking a pack of postcards from her bag, proceeded to identify the different monuments.

Soon Violet came flying over. “How do you do, Madame Julia?” she said. “Is the Honorable Cæsar at home?”

“No,” said Patty, rising with great dignity, and bowing to her guest. “He had to go to market,—to the Forum, I mean. It’s his day to make a speech to the Senate or something.”

“I’ve brought my cards,” said Violet, dropping back into a modern American mood. “Don’t you get the columns mixed up?”

“Yes, I do,” said Patty. “But I don’t care much. You can wonder better, if you’re not sure of your facts.”

“Of course you can,” said Homer, who, with young Van Winkle, came just then within hearing of the two girls. “Pardon my interruption, Madame Julia, but I’ve brought a Roman Senator to call on you. Allow me to present Augustus Van Winkleinus, from the ancient City of Philadelphia.”

“Ha,” said Patty, “methinks we have met aforetime. Art not Lankius the Rotund?”

“I art not!” declared Lank, “I art but a stripling youth.”

“A good-natured one, forsooth,” said Patty, laughing.

“Good nature, but bad art,” said Violet. “Peterus Homerus, what is the noble building next us, with its three columns left standing?”

“I know,” cried Patty, “it’s the Temple of Castor and Pollux.”

“Don’t call it that,” said Mr. Homer. “Just say the Temple of Castor. It sounds better to trained ears.”

“All right, I will,” said Patty. “What was it for, anyway?”

“For various commercial uses. Indeed, it was a sort of an office building at one time. It contained the testing-office for weights and measures. But that doesn’t add to its interest. Just look at the blue sky between those perfect columns, and let that be your only memory of the Temple of Castor.”

“Isn’t it strange,” said Patty, reminiscently, “you said you wished you could show me Italy in your own way, and here you are doing it!”

“Yes, and I’m glad I have the opportunity. How do you like my way?”

“I love it,” said Patty. “But all ways lead to Rome, so I suppose that’s how you happened to get here just now.”

“I suppose so,” returned Homer. “But Senator Lancastrius Van Winkleius and I came over to invite you Roman matrons to dine with us in my Triumphal Arch. Will you come?”

“What have you to dine on?” asked Violet.

“Ah, that’s the triumph! You come and see. It isn’t correct to ask your host such a question.”

So the four proceeded to the Arch of Severus, and there on some stones they found a box of sandwiches and a small pile of fruit.

“Primitive service, but good food,” remarked Peter, and the girls suddenly realised that they had a fine twentieth-century appetite.

“This is great,” declared Patty, as she sat on an old block of marble, with a sandwich in one hand and a bunch of grapes in the other. “I approve of your method of ‘seeing Italy,’ and I think a triumphal arch the best place in the world to eat sandwiches.”

“And then you see,” said Peter, “it fixes this particular arch in your mind; and when wiseacres speak of Septimius Severus, you can say to yourself, ‘Ah, yes, his is the Arch of the Sandwiches.’”

“I shall never forget it,” said Violet, helping herself to some fruit. “I feel a personal friendship for old Severus.”

“Incidentally,” went on Peter, “you may as well fasten in your memory the facts that this arch was built about 200 A.D., in commemoration of the victorious wars of our friend Severus. These not very beautiful sculpturings represent his soldiers, but as art had begun to decline when these figures were cut, you needn’t bother about them much.”

“I think they’re rather nice,” said Patty, examining the multitudinous small figures in bas-relief, “but I’m glad I haven’t to learn all their names, for there are so many more attractive sculptures.”

“There are indeed. But I want you to remember the arch as a whole. And now that you’ve eaten every last crumb, step outside, and take a look at the beautiful thing.”

The quartette lined up, facing the arch, and Peter pointed out its special points of beauty and excellence.

“Where is there another arch, very similar to this?” he asked, at length, and his three hearers tried to think.

“I know!” said Patty, her eyes shining, “it’s in Paris. Not the Arc de Triomphe, that has only one front door,—but the other, the Arc du Carrousel!”

“Right you are,” said Peter, approvingly. “The Arc du Carrousel was modelled after this one. Remember that, when you have a remembering fit.”

“But the Carrousel one has a flight of horses on top,” said Patty.

“Right again, my acute observer. However, Mr. Severus once had six fine horses and a chariot on top of this one. Also a statue of himself and his two sons. So, you see, it’s a bit of a ruin after all.”

“It is so,” said Violet. “So much so that, until now, I’ve liked the Arch of Constantine better; but now that’s tottering on its pedestal.”

“Oh, that arch is all right,” declared Lank; “I’ll never go back on Constantine’s Triumphal Bungalow.”

“There’s a well-known arch modelled after that, too,” said Peter. “Where is it, my children?”

But none of the three could answer that, so Peter said:

“Well, you are a brilliant class! Why, the Marble Arch in London, of course.”

“Pooh,” said Patty, “that’s no more like Constantine’s Arch than chalk’s like cheese.”

“Nevertheless it was patterned from it.”

“Then they must have carried the pattern in their heads! Why, the Marble Arch is all white and smug, and sharp edges,—and Constantine’s is all lovely and brown and gummy.”

“Gummy?”

“Yes; sort of fuzzy and crumbly; not as if it had just been washed up by a scrub-lady, like the Marble Arch.”

“Your language is not truly technical, but I’m glad you have a feeling for arches,” said Peter, laughing at Patty’s scornful face.

“’Deed I have. Let’s go back and look at Constantine’s Arch, while we have this one in mind.”

“Come on, let’s do that same,” said Lank. “And then we must be getting back to our bereaved parents.”

“So we must,” said Patty. “I forgot all about going home. Well, good-by old sandwich man, you put up a first-class arch, I think.”

“And my hotel chef put up first-class sandwiches, I think,” said Peter.

“They were so,” said Violet, enthusiastically. “I don’t know how you happened to think we’d be hungry.”

“Oh, when people want bread they’re not satisfied with stones, not even carved ones,” said Peter; and then they all trudged slowly up the foot-path toward the entrance gate.

Patty kicked affectionately at the fragments of columns and bits of carved marble that bordered the path.

“I wonder where that used to be,” she said, pausing before a broken stone face, which showed only the mouth and chin.

“Right under somebody’s nose,” said Lank, with a grin, and Violet reproved him for being so foolish.

“I like foolishness,” said Patty, smiling at the boy; “but I mean I wonder where the whole statue was.”

“You may as well wonder about that as anything else,” said Peter. “I’m wondering if we can find a cab that will leisurely convey us home.”

“By way of Constantine’s Arch,” reminded Patty.

They soon found a carriage and the four climbed in.

“Let’s be a club,” said Patty, who loved to organise things. “Then we can go and see things regularly.”

“Not very regularly, the way we see them,” said Peter. “But I’ll join your club. Shall we call it the Roamin’ Club?”

A howl of derision greeted this jest, and Lank added to the fun by saying, “No, let’s just call it the Romers, and then we can Rome all around.”

“Don’t be idiotic,” said Violet. “I propose the Wanderers’ Club, that’s more sensible.”

“But there’s been a Wanderers’ Club,” objected Patty; “how about the Wonderers’ Club, instead?”

“Capital,” said Peter. “Just the Wonderers, then we can wonder as much as we like while we’re wandering.”

“Flo will have to belong to it,” said Patty. “She’s coming to-day.”

“Anybody can belong,” said Peter, “who is willing to wonder.”

“Shall we have regular meetings?” asked Violet.

“Oh, dear no,” said Patty, “we won’t have anything regular about it. We’ll just meet when we feel like it, and go wondering about together.”

“The fun will be,” said Peter, “wondering when the next meeting will take place.”

“And wondering where it will be,” added Patty.

They drove home slowly, here and there catching glimpses of wonderful perspectives and splendid vistas, to which Peter Homer called their attention in his casual, humorous way.

Patty said little, but leaning back in the rather bumpy old vehicle, she revelled in the beauty all around her, and stored it away in her memory for future years.

“We’ve had a perfect morning,” said Patty, as she joined her parents at luncheon. “Peter Homer,—we all call each other by our first names now,—is the loveliest man to go about with. He knows everything, but he never flings information at you till you want it.”

“A fine trait,” observed her father. “I’m like that, myself.”

“Yes, you are, Daddy,” said Patty, with an affectionate glance. “But even you don’t know the books full of wise stuff that he does. And he’s so kind and funny.”

“He does seem to possess all the virtues,” said Nan; “and I’m glad he’s here, Patty. You seem to have several pleasant friends.”

“Yes, the Van Winkles are all right. Our sort, you know. I’m glad to see some Americans once more. This afternoon Flo will come, and she’s far from American, I can tell you.”

A few hours later, Patty was lying down in her own room, resting after her morning’s excursion, when she was roused by a tap at the door.

She jumped up and opened it, and there was the smiling face of Flo Carrington.

“You dear thing,” she cried, bouncing into the room, and flinging both arms round Patty, “I’m here.”

“So you are,” said Patty, “and I’m awfully glad to see you. Come in, and sit down.”

“I’m jolly well glad to get here,” said Flo, as she threw herself into an armchair. “The journey was horrible. Snippy almost turned back several times.”

“Well, you’re here now, and it’s all right,” said Patty, soothingly. “I’m so glad your mother let you come.”

“She didn’t want to; not a bit. But I teased her so, I gave her no peace till she said yes. And why shouldn’t she? She’s been promising me the trip for years. But she hated to have me leave her.”

“She’s satisfied to have you travel with Mrs. Snippy?”

“Oh, Snippy’s name is really Mrs. Postlethwaite. But that’s so long, I call her Snippy for short. You must do so too, she’s used to it from everybody. Yes, indeed, mumsie trusts me to her. Oh, Snippy is governess, maid, courier, chaperon, Baedeker, and booking office, all in one.”

“And are you comfortably fixed here?”

“My word, yes! We have rooms like valentines. Come, see them.”

Flo jumped up, and taking Patty by the arm led her to the rooms, which were furnished in the same over-ornate style as the Fairfields’ apartment.

“Snippy, dear,” said Flo, “this is Patty, my very good friend.”

“Pleased to meet you, miss,” said Snippy, as she rose to curtsey.

She was a grim-looking old lady, one that might be characterised as a ‘dragon,’ but she had a gleam of humour in her eye, which went to Patty’s heart at once.

“You’ve been to Rome before?” said Patty, by way of making conversation.

“Yes, miss, I’ve been almost everywhere. It’s my bad luck never to be let to rest long in my own country.”

“Oh, come now, Snippy,” said Flo; “you’re glad to be in Rome, you know you are.”

“Not in this stuffy place, Miss Flo. Italian air is bad and close enough, without stifling a body with velvet hangings pulled all about. And thick carpets, snug from wall to wall. As well be shut up in a jewel-case!”

“It is exactly like a jewel-case,” said Patty, laughing at the apt illustration. “All the rooms in Rome are, I believe.”

“Well, I like it,” said Flo; “and I’m so glad to be with you, Patty. I don’t mean to bother you, you know, but you’re glad I came, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am,” said Patty, though conscious of a feeling that Flo might sometimes be an insistent companion. But she was ashamed of this thought as soon as it came, and said, cordially; “and I’ll take you to lots of lovely places. We’ve a new club, ‘The Wonderers,’ and you’re to be a member of that. And to-morrow I’m giving a small afternoon tea, with you as guest of honour. It will have to be a very small tea, for I only know half a dozen people in Rome. But Floyd Austin and Caddy Oram are coming soon,—isn’t that fine?”

“Yes, I like both those boys. Oh, what fun we will have. I’m so glad I came. Snippy says I have to keep up my practising every day, and study my Italian. But I don’t want to,—I just want to have fun like you do.”

“It’s your mother’s orders, Miss Flo,” said Snippy, in a gruff voice of great firmness; “and her orders I must see carried out.”

“You’ll see me carried out if you make me work so hard,” said Flo. “Tell her so, Patty.”

“Can’t Miss Carrington have a holiday, occasionally?” asked Patty, in her most wheedlesome way, but the stern Englishwoman shut her lips together with a snap, and then opened them to say, “No, Miss Fairfield; I have my orders.”

“Wow!” thought Patty, after she had returned to her own room, “I’m glad I don’t have to travel with a duenna, or whatever they call those snippy people.”

CHAPTER IX
A ROMAN TEA

PATTY had decided to have her tea in the garden of the hotel, and a good-sized portion had been set aside for her use.

Light tables and chairs nestled cosily among the great palms and tropical plants, and growing flowers made masses of bloom here and there.

The orchestra, just far enough away to be pleasant, had been engaged to play at intervals, including some American airs with their other selections. The collation had been carefully chosen, and after an inspection of the place to see that everything was satisfactory, Patty went to dress for the event.

“Do you remember Smarty’s party?” she said, pausing in Nan’s room.

“Whose?”

“Why, there’s a classic poem, something like this:

“‘Smarty

Had a party;

Nobody came

’Ceptin’ Smarty!’

And my tea will be like that! The garden looks lovely, the cakes and ices are dreams of beauty, and I mean to be a charming hostess; but, alas, my guests are so few.”

“Who are coming? Every one you know in Rome, I suppose.”

“Yes, but that’s only Flo, and the Van Winkles, and Mr. Homer. Oh, yes, I asked Mr. Leland, but I don’t know as he’ll come. And Violet asked leave to bring Milly Mills, some girl she knows, whose mother is an invalid, so Milly can’t go out much.”

“Well, you’ll have more guests than Smarty had,” said Nan, consolingly. “And your father and I, and Mr. and Mrs. Valentine, will make a fine background of elderly respectability.”

“Yes, you’re a fine old Dowager Duchess,” said Patty, smiling at pretty Nan. “With your roseleaf skin and your turn-up nose. You look more like a débutante.”

“How foolish you are,” said Nan, blushing and dimpling as she always did at Patty’s chaffing compliments, which were, nevertheless, sincere.

Patty was getting into her frock, a soft Liberty silk of a lovely pale green, when an impatient knock came at her door, and before she could open it, Flo flung it open and fairly rushed in.

“Patty Fairfield,” she cried, “what do you think! That outrageous Snippy says I can’t go to your tea, because I haven’t done my practising! She says I can go later, but I must practise for an hour first. And I won’t do it!”

“I should say not,” cried Patty, in a burst of righteous indignation. “I never heard of anything so horrid. Of course you’ll coax her around somehow.”

“Coax Snippy! You don’t know her! You see I went wondering with you all this morning, and since luncheon I’ve been napping, and now I want to get ready for the party.”

“And you must. Come, I’ll go with you and try to persuade old Snippy.”

“No, that won’t do any good. But here’s my plan. Once in a great while, when I feel very dreadfully put out, I turn on her and scare the wits out of her. Not often, or it would lose all effect,—but I’m going to do it now. Do, if you like, come with me and see the fun.”

Patty felt a little ashamed at such strenuous measures, but she followed Flo through the halls.

By the piano in Flo’s sitting-room stood Snippy, a majestic figure of towering wrath and immovable determination.

“Good-afternoon, Miss Patty,” she said, not uncivilly, but coldly. “Miss Flo will come to your tea a bit late, as she has her music to do.”

“I’m not going to practise to-day,” remarked Flo, carelessly.

“Yes, Miss Flo, you are. Not a step do you go from this room till your hour is done.”

Then Flo turned to her governess and looked her straight in the eye.

“Snippy,” she said, in firm, even tones, “I am not going to practise to-day, nor to-morrow, nor next day, and perhaps never again! Hush, don’t you speak! I’m going to Patty’s tea, now, now, NOW! Do you hear?” Flo’s voice grew a little louder and she took a step toward Snippy, and shook a warning forefinger at her. “You have your orders, I know, but in this case you take orders from me, ME! I wish to dress at once, and you will lay out my Dresden silk with the pink bows. Now you jump!”

Perhaps it was the explosive way in which she pronounced the last word, but at any rate Snippy jumped as if she had been shot, and with a vanquished air went to the wardrobe for Flo’s dress. Patty, overcome with amusement at the scene, slipped away, lest her presence prove embarrassing to the conquered spirit.

But she needn’t have feared. Snippy’s nature had a touch of arrogance and presumption because of her responsible position, and when Flo thus asserted herself, the stern old lady felt the justice of it and met the situation bravely.

“Yes, Miss Flo,” she said, “and shall I do your hair with bands or a fringe?”

So the incident was closed, and never again referred to, and Flo tranquilly did her practising every day thereafter.

“Isn’t she funny?” said Patty, as the two sat in the garden waiting for the guests to come.

“Yes, indeed,” said Flo. “I just wanted you to see how she collapses when I go at her in earnest. But she’s a dear old thing, and I put up with her domineering usually, because it’s more peaceful to do so.”

Then Violet and Lancaster came, bringing Milly Mills. Patty greeted the new girl cordially, and sat down beside her for a chat.

“We’re staying at a pension,” said Milly; “mother is not well enough for the life in a hotel. I wish we might live here. You can do anything you like, can’t you?”

“Why, yes, I suppose so,” said Patty, smiling. “But I never think of it that way, for I always like anything I do.”

Milly opened her eyes wide.

“You do?” she said. “Well, I never like anything I do.”

“What an awful way to live!” exclaimed Patty. “Do you dislike everything on principle?”

“No, but most things are so horrid.”

“Rome isn’t.”

“Oh, yes, it is. It’s hot and dirty, and jammed full of stupid old ruins.”

Milly looked so utterly disgusted that Patty felt like laughing, but controlled the inclination.

“You come with us, some day,” she said. “Come with our Wonderers’ Club, and we’ll show you ruins that are not stupid.”

“I’d love to go,” said Milly, “I like you because you’re so happy. I’m never happy.”

“Then you’re a goose,” said Patty, gaily. “But I’ll engage to give you a few happy hours, see if I don’t.”

“Well, she is a terror,” thought Patty, as she turned away to greet some others who were coming in. “I’ll have to study her out; so far, she’s all fuss and fret, but she must have some good traits. How do you do, Mr. Leland. This is awfully kind of you, to come to my little tea. Won’t you sit here by Miss Mills?”

It was a mischievous impulse that made Patty put the distinguished Mr. Leland to entertain fretful Milly, but to her surprise the two were soon chatting pleasantly.

“I thought she must be some good,” said Patty to herself, with a feeling of satisfaction at her own insight.

“Seeing a green whisk of femininity among the bosky glades, he quickly made his way thither.”

When Patty heard this speech in a high-pitched monotone, she knew at once who had come, and turning, with a glad smile, she held out both hands to Floyd Austin.

“You dear boy,” she cried, “I’m so glad to see you!”

“You dear girl,” he responded, “I’m so glad you’re glad. My word! but we’re gay and festive, aren’t we? Are you always so gorgeously social as this?”

“No, this is a special occasion to get us all acquainted, and afterward, we’re to be just plain, everyday chums.”

“I see; and who is the elderly youth talking to the pretty crosspatch?”

Patty fairly giggled at his quick and apt descriptions.

“Elderly youth is just the right term for Mr. Leland,” she said, “but how did you know that pretty Milly Mills is—well, not exactly of a sunny disposition?”

“Oh, I can tell by the lines of her thumbs,” said Floyd, nonsensically. “But, tell me, how does your own sunny disposition thrive in Rome? Dost like the pictures?”

“I do like the pictures,” said Patty, with a little sigh, “if there weren’t so many millions of ’em.”

“Yes, there are some few, but then you need see only one at a time.”

“But it’s the same theme over and over. I get so tired of Saint Sebastian and his arrows, and Susannah, and that everlasting Thorn Extractor.”

“He isn’t a picture.”

“No, it would be a pleasant change if he were.”

“It would be a pleasant change and a wise plan, too, if they set the Thorn Extractors to picking the arrows out of Saint Sebastian.”

“Indeed it would! And if they’d tie old Susannah to a tree, she wouldn’t look so silly as she usually does.”

“I fear your art instincts are frivolous. Come over here, Caddy, and hear Young America talk art.”

Caddy Oram, who had come in with Floyd, but had paused to speak to Nan, now came to greet Patty.

“Aren’t you properly awed by the art galleries?” he asked.

“I was, at first,” said Patty, truthfully, “but now, I’m so used to being awed that it doesn’t bother me so much.”

“That’s the worst of it,” said Caddy, “one does get used to being awed in Italy.”