think you might come to my house, sometimes,” said Elise.
“Oh, I have to go to Patty’s to look after the goldfish,” said Kenneth. “I thought Darby swam lame, the last time I saw him. Does he, Patty?”
“No, not now. But Juliet has a cold, and I’m afraid of rheumatism setting in.”
“No,” said Kenneth; “she’s too young for rheumatism. But she may have ‘housemaid’s knee.’ You must be very careful about draughts.”
The goldfish were a never-failing source of fun for the Quartette. The fish themselves were quiet, inoffensive little creatures, but the ready imagination of the young people invested them with all sorts of strange qualities, both physical and mental.
“Juliet’s still sulky about that thimble,” said Roger, as they all looked into the fishes’ globe. “I gave her Patty’s thimble yesterday to wear for a hat, and it didn’t suit her at all.”
“I should say not!” cried Patty. “She thought it was a helmet. You must take her for Joan of Arc.”
“She didn’t wear a helmet,” said Elise, laughing.
“Well, she wore armour. They belong together. Anyway, Juliet doesn’t know but that Joan of Arc wore a helmet.”
“Oh, is that what made her so sulky?” said Roger. “Nice disposition, I must say.”
“She’s nervous,” put in Kenneth, “and a little morbid, poor thing. Patty, I think a little iron in the water would do her good.”
“Send for a flatiron, Patty,” said Roger. “I know it would help her, if you set it carefully on top of her.”
“I won’t do it!” said Patty. “Poor Juliet is flat enough now. She doesn’t eat enough to keep a bird alive. Let’s go away and leave her to sleep. That will fatten her, maybe.”
“Lullaby, Julie, in the fish-bowl,” sang Roger.
“When the wind blows, the billows will roll,” continued Elise, fanning the water in the globe with a newspaper.
“When the bowl breaks, the fishes will fall,” contributed Patty, and Ken wound up by singing:
“And the Cat will eat Juliet, Darby, and all!”
“Oh, horrible!” cried Patty. “Indeed she won’t! My beautiful pets shall never meet that cruel fate.”
Leaving Juliet to her much needed nap, they all strolled into the library.
“Let’s be a club,” said Elise. “Just us four, you know.”
“All right,” said Patty, who loved clubs. “What sort of a club?”
“Musical,” said Elise. “We all sing.”
“Musical clubs are foolish,” said Roger. “Let’s be a dramatic club.”
“Dramatic clubs are too much work,” said Patty; “and four isn’t enough for that, anyway. Let’s do good.”
“Oh, Patty,” groaned Kenneth, “you’re getting so eleemosynary there’s no fun in you!”
“Mercy, gracious!” cried Patty. “What was that fearful word you said, Ken? No! don’t say it over again! I can’t stand all of it at once!”
“Well, we have to stand you!” grumbled Kenneth, “and you’re that all the time, now. What foolishness are you going to fly at next, trying to earn a dishonest penny?”
“I’m thinking of going out as a cook,” said Patty, her eyes twinkling. “Cooking is the only thing I really know how to do. But I can do that.”
“You’ll be fine as cook,” said Roger. “May I come round Thursday afternoons and take you out?”
“I s’pose I’ll only have every other Thursday,” said Patty, demurely.
“And the other Thursday you won’t be there! But what about this club we’re organising?”
“Make it musical,” said Kenneth, “and then while one of us is playing or singing some classical selection, the others can indulge in merry conversation.”
“You may as well make it the Patty Club,” said Elise, “as I suppose it will always meet here.”
Though not really jealous of her friend’s popularity, Elise always resented the fact that the young people would rather be at Patty’s than at her own home.
The reason was, that the Fairfield house, though handsomely appointed, was not so formally grand as the Farringtons’, and there was always an atmosphere of cordiality and hospitality at Patty’s, while at Elise’s it was oppressively formal and dignified.
“Oh, pshaw,” said Patty, ignoring Elise’s unkind intent; “I won’t have you always here. We’ll take turns, of course.”
“All right,” said Elise; “every other week at my house and every other week here. But don’t you think we ought to have more than four members?”
“No, I don’t,” declared Kenneth, promptly. “And we don’t want any musical nonsense, or any dramatic foolishness, either. Let’s just have fun; if it’s pleasant weather, we’ll go skating, or sleighing, or motoring, or whatever you like; if it isn’t, we’ll stay indoors, or go to a matinée or concert, or something like that.”
“Lovely!” cried Elise. “But if we’re to go to matinées, we’ll have to meet Saturdays.”
“Or Wednesdays,” amended Patty. “Let’s meet Wednesdays. I ’most always have engagements on Saturdays.”
“All right; shall we call it the Wednesday Club, then?”
“No, Elise,” said Roger, gravely. “That’s too obvious; we will call it the Thursday Club, because we meet on Wednesday; see?”
“No, I don’t see,” said Elise, looking puzzled.
“Why,” explained Roger, “you see we’ll spend all day Thursday thinking over the good time we had on Wednesday!”
“But that isn’t the real reason,” said Patty, giggling. “The real reason we call it the Thursday Club is because it meets on Wednesday!”
“That’s it, Patsy!” said Ken, approvingly, for he and Patty had the same love for nonsense, though more practical Elise couldn’t always understand it.
“Well, then, the Thursday Club will meet here next Wednesday,” said Patty; “unless I am otherwise engaged.”
For she just happened to think, that on that day she might be again attempting to earn her fifteen dollars.
“What’s the Thursday Club? Mayn’t I belong?” said a pleasant voice, and Mr. Hepworth came in.
“Oh, how do you do?” cried Patty, jumping up, and offering both hands. “I’m so glad to see you. Do sit down.”
“I came round,” said Mr. Hepworth, after greeting the others, “in hopes I could corral a cup of tea. I thought you ran a five-o’clock tea-room.”
“We do,” said Patty, ringing a bell nearby. “That is, we always have tea when Nan is home; and we can just as well have it when she isn’t.”
“I suppose you young people don’t care for tea,” went on Mr. Hepworth, looking a little enviously at the merry group, who, indeed, didn’t care whether they had tea or not.
“Oh, yes, we do,” said Patty. “We love it. But we,—we just forgot it. We were so engrossed in organising a club.”
But the others did not follow up this conversational beginning, and even before the tea was brought, Elise said