the length of the long drawing-room, "you've been buying the Venus of Milo, and it's just been sent home, and you've set it up here behind these curtains. Well, I shall be pleased to admire it, I'm sure!"
She drew the crimson curtains apart, and right before her, instead of a marble statue, stood her father and Nan!
Then such an exciting time as there was!
Patty threw her arms around them both at once, and everybody was laughing, and they all talked at the same time, and Patty understood at last why they had been directed to put on their new dresses.
"Can it be possible that this is my little girl!" exclaimed Mr. Fairfield, as he drew Patty down up on his knee, quite as he used to when she was really a little girl.
"Nonsense!" cried Nan; "you haven't changed a bit, Patty, except to grow about half an inch taller, and to be wearing a remarkably pretty dress."
"And you people haven't changed a bit, either," declared Patty; "and oh, I'm SO glad to see you!"
She flew back and forth from one of her parents to the other, pinching them, to make sure, as she said, that they were really there.
"And now tell me all about it," she said, looking at the others; "did you all know they were coming?"
"No," said Mrs. Farrington; "Mr. Farrington and I have known it for some weeks, but we didn't dare tell Elise, for she's such a chatterbox she never could have kept the secret, and we wanted so much to surprise you."
"Well, you HAVE surprised me," said Patty; "and it's the loveliest surprise I ever had. Oh, what fun it will be to take you benighted people around to see Paris."
So Elise declared it was a party after all, and the dinner was a very merry one, and the whole evening was spent in gay chatter about the winter just past, and making plans for the summer to come.
Patty didn't gather very definitely what these plans were, but she soon learned that Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield had come to Paris really to get her, and then they were going on to London; and where else, Patty neither knew nor cared.
The Farringtons were to return soon to America, and so the whole change of outlook was so sudden that Patty was bewildered.
"You look as if you didn't quite know yet what has happened," said Mr. Fairfield to Patty, as the whole party stood in the hall saying their good-nights.
"I don't, papa," said Patty; "but I'm very happy. I've had a delightful winter, and Mr. and Mrs. Farrington have been most beautifully kind, and Elise is just the dearest chum in the world; but you know, papa, home is where the heart is, and my heart belongs just to you and Nan, and so now I feel that I am home again at last."
"And we're mighty glad to have you, little girl, again in our heart and home. It was pretty lonesome without you all winter in New York. But now we're all three together again, and we'll help each other enjoy the good time that's coming."
"It seems too good to be true," said Patty, as she kissed her parents good-night, and ran away to all sorts of happy dreams.
PATTY'S FRIENDS
XVII. The Griffin and the Rose
Chapter I.
An Afternoon Tea
“I wish I had a twin sister,” said Patty; “no, that wouldn’t do, either. I wish I were twins, and could be both of them myself.”
“What a sensible wish!” commented Nan. “But why do you want to double yourself up in that way?”
“So I could go to two places at once. Here I have two lovely invitations for this afternoon, and I don’t know which I want to accept most. One is a musicale at Mrs. Hastings’, and the other is a picture exhibition at the New Gallery.”
“They sound delightful. Can’t you manage to go to both?”
“No, they’re too far apart; and they’re both at four o’clock, anyway. I think I’ll choose the musicale, for I’ll surely get another chance to see the pictures.”
“Yes, of course you will,” agreed Nan, a little absently, for she was reading some newly arrived letters.
The Fairfields were in London, and were comfortably established in the Savoy Hotel. It was April, and though they intended to travel later in the summer, their plans were as yet indefinite, and they were enjoying the many and varied delights of the London season.
To be sure, Nan and Mr. Fairfield were invited to many dinners and elaborate entertainments which Patty was too young to attend, but her time was pleasantly filled with afternoon garden parties or teas, while mornings were often devoted to sight-seeing.
Patty was almost eighteen, and though not allowed quite the untrammelled freedom she would have had in America, she was not kept so utterly secluded as English girls of her age. Sometimes she would go all alone to Westminster Abbey or to the National Gallery, and enjoy