most intimate friends had gathered on the Upper Deck to chat. Patty herself had been snugly tucked into a deck chair by Kenneth, who insisted on showing her just how the proceeding should be accomplished.
"Nothing shows your ignorance, my child, on board ship," he was saying, "like not knowing how to manage your steamer rug and pillow."
"But," said Patty, "I shall then have on a suitable gown that will stand rough usage; but I beg of you, Ken, stop tucking that rug around my delicate kelpie decorations.
"Oh," said Kenneth, "you're a kelpie, then! Strange I didn't recognise you at once, but I so rarely meet kelpies in the best society. Now I'm Captain Kidd."
"Are you?" cried Elise gaily; "now I had an idea you were Admiral Farragut; but then one so rarely meets Captain Kidd in the best society."
"That's so," said Kenneth; "and think how long it will be, girls, before you have the pleasure of meeting this particular Captain Kidd in any society. I tell you, I envy you. You're going to have the time of your life in Paris, and I wish to goodness I could go along with you."
"Oh, do, Kenneth," cried Patty; "we'd have just the best time ever! Can't you give up college and put in a lot of study over there?"
"No, indeed, I can't; I'm only just wishing I could. There's no harm in wishing, you know. But if you'll stay until next summer, perhaps I'll come over and see you during vacation, and then we can all come home together."
"That would be fine," said Elise, "and we're just as likely to stay until summer as not. But then, on the other hand, we're just as likely to come home as soon as we get there. You never can tell what those absurd parents of mine are going to do."
Meantime a strange-looking figure was walking across the Upper Deck toward the group that surrounded Patty. It was impossible not to recognise the character, which was meant to be a representation of Noah. But it was the well-known Noah of the children's Noah's ark, and the straight-up-and-down, tightly fitting brown garment, with yellow buttons down the front, was exactly like the patriarch as shown in the wooden toys. A flat, broad-brimmed hat sat squarely on his head, and as he held his arms straight down at his side, and as his cheeks bore little round daubs of red paint, Mr. Hepworth was exactly like a gigantic specimen of the nursery Noah.
He came across the deck with a staggering, uncertain motion, as if the ship were rolling and pitching about. His realistic acting made them all laugh, and when he dropped into a deck chair and, calling the steward, asked faintly for a cup of weak tea, Patty declared she believed she wouldn't go to Paris after all.
"For I'm sure," she said, "that I don't want to go wabbling across a deck and looking as ill and woebegone as you do."
Mr. Hepworth smiled at her. "You'll have so many remedies and preventives given you," he said, "and you'll be so busy pitching them overboard that you won't have time to be seasick. Really I don't believe you'll think of such a thing all the way over, let alone experiencing it."
"You're a great comfort," said Patty heartily; "you always tell me the most comforting things. Now everybody else declares that after I've been at sea for a day I'll be so ill that I won't care whether I live or die."
"Nonsense," declared Mr. Hepworth; "don't pay any attention to such croakings."
"I agree with you," said Elise. "I've made up my mind that I'm not going to be seasick, but I'm going to have a perfectly jolly time all the way across."
"Of course you'll have jolly times," said Marian, who was in one of her doleful moods; "but think of us who are left behind! We won't have any jolly time until you come back again."
"Oh, I don't know!" said Kenneth. "Of course I'm devoted to these two girls, but I'm not going to let it blight my young existence and crush my whole career, just because I have to live without them for six months."
"But you don't love Patty as I do," said Marian with a sigh, as she gazed at her adored cousin.
"No, Marian, I don't," said Kenneth; "not as YOU do, for I assume that you love her as a first cousin. Now my affection for Patty is more on the order of a grandmother's brother-in-law once removed. You can't be too careful about the exact type of attachment you feel for a young lady, and I think that expresses my regard for Patty. Now toward Elise I feel more like a great niece's uncle's brother-in-law. There is a very subtle distinction between the two, but I know that both girls are acutely aware of the exact kind and degree of my regard for them."
"I am, anyway," said Patty; "and I must say, Ken, that it's much easier to leave you, with that definite affection of yours, than it is to go away from Marian and leave her floundering in her deep and somewhat damp woe."
Marian vouchsafed a sad sort of smile, and said it was all very well for them to make fun of her, but she couldn't help missing Patty.
"Nobody can help missing Patty," declared Mr. Hepworth; "and for my part, if I find that I miss her very much I shall go straight over to Paris and bring her back."
"I hope you will," cried Patty; "that is, I hope you'll come over, and perhaps we can persuade you not to be in such a dreadful hurry to come back."
"I had expected to run over in the early spring, anyway," said Mr. Hepworth carelessly, as if it were a matter of no moment; "I want to do certain French sketches that I've had my mind on for some time."
"Well, if you do come," said Elise cordially, "come right to our house and I know we can put you up. The Farringtons are erratic, but always hospitable; and I hereby invite this whole crowd to visit us in Paris, either jointly or severally, whenever the spirit moves you."
"If I find a spirit that can move me over to Paris, I shall come often," declared Kenneth; "but I'm afraid I'm too substantially built to be wafted across the ocean in the clutches of any spirit."
Just then the notes of a bugle sounded clear and sweet from below.
"That's the ship's bugler," declared Mr. Hepworth, "and that's the bugle call for supper. Shall we go down and refresh ourselves?"
"Yes, indeed," cried Patty, jumping from her nest of steamer rugs; "I'm as hungry as a hawk."
But it somehow happened that all of the gay young crowd left the Upper Deck to go to the supper room before Patty and Mr. Hepworth started. He detained her for a moment while he said: "Little girl, will you miss me while you're away?"
"Even if I expected to I wouldn't own up to it," said Patty, as she gave him a mischievous glance.
"Why wouldn't you own up to it?" Mr. Hepworth spoke quite seriously and looked intently at the pretty face before him, with its golden hair crowned by the shining green sea-wreath.
"I don't know," said Patty slowly. She felt herself forced by his impelling gaze to raise her eyes to his, and for the first time it occurred to her that Mr. Hepworth felt more interest in her than she had ever suspected. "I don't know why I wouldn't own up to it, I'm sure," she went on; "in fact, now that I come to think of it, I believe I should own up to it."
"Well, own it then. Tell me you will miss me, and will sometimes wish I might be with you."
"Oh," cried Patty, laughing merrily, "I only meant I would own it if it were true. Of course I sha'n't really miss you; there'll be so much to amuse and interest me that I sha'n't have time to miss anybody except papa and Nan."
"That's just what I thought," said Mr. Hepworth.
Chapter V.
Good-Byes
At last the day of sailing came. The steamer was to leave her dock at three o'clock on Saturday afternoon, and soon after two Patty went on board, accompanied by Nan and her father.
A crowd of friends had also gathered to bid Patty goodspeed, and besides these the Farringtons had many friends there to say good-bye to them.
With