parlour-maid. But I promise you I won’t be a cook. Much as I like to fuss with a chafing-dish, I shouldn’t like to be kept in a kitchen and boil and roast things all the time.”
“I should say not! Well, since I can’t persuade you to give up your foolish notion, do go on, and get through with your three attempts as soon as possible. Remember, you’ve promised not more than three.”
“I promise,” said Patty, with much solemnity, and then Nan and Mr. Fairfield came in.
Mr. Hepworth appealed at once to Mr. Fairfield, telling him what he had already told Patty.
“Nonsense, Hepworth,” said Patty’s father, “I’m glad you started the ball rolling. It hasn’t done Patty a bit of harm, so far, and it will be an experience she’ll always remember. Let her go ahead; she can’t succeed, but she can have the satisfaction of knowing she tried.”
“I’m not so sure she can’t succeed,” said Nan, standing up for Patty, who looked a little crestfallen at the remarks of her father.
“Good for you, Nan!” cried Patty; “I’ll justify your faith in me yet. I know Mr. Hepworth thinks I’m good for nothing, but Daddy ought to know me better.”
Mr. Hepworth seemed not to notice this petulant outburst, and only said:
“Remember, you’ve promised to withdraw from the arena after three more conflicts.”
“They won’t be conflicts,” said Patty, “and there won’t be but one, anyway!”
“So much the better,” said Mr. Hepworth, calmly.
Chapter XIV.
Mrs. Van Reypen
It was about a week later. Nothing further had been said or done in the matter of Patty’s “occupation,” and Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield wondered what plan was slowly brewing under the mop of golden curls.
Mr. Hepworth began to hope his words had had an effect after all, and was about to lay the case of Miss Farley before some other true and tried friends.
But he had practically promised Patty to give her time for three more attempts; so he waited.
One day Patty came into the house just in time for luncheon.
“Nan,” she said, as they sat down at the table, “I’ve struck it right this time!”
“In-deed!” said Nan, raising her eyebrows, quizzically.
“Yes, I have! You needn’t laugh like that.”
“I didn’t laugh.”
“Yes, you did,—behind your eyes, but I saw you! Now, as I tell you, this time conquers!”
“Good for you, Patsy! Let me congratulate you. Let me do it now, lest I shouldn’t be able to do it later.”
“Huh! I thought you had faith in me.”
“And so I have, Patty girl,” said Nan, growing serious all at once. “I truly have. Also, I’ll help you, if I can.”
“That’s just it, Nan. You can help me this time, and I’m going to tell you all about it, before I start in.”
“Going to tell me now?”
“Yes, because I go this afternoon.”
“Go where?”
“That’s just it. I go to take a position as a companion to an elderly lady. And I shall stay a week. I’ll take some clothes in a suitcase, or small trunk, and after I’m gone, you must tell father, and make it all right with him.”
“But, Patty, he said at the outset, you must be home by five o’clock every day, whatever you were doing.”
“Yes; but that referred to occupations by the day. Now, that I’ve decided to take this sort of a position, which is really more appropriate to a lady of my ‘social standing,’ you must explain to him that I can’t come home at five o’clock, because I have to stay all the time, nights and all.”
“Patty, you’re crazy!”
“No, I’m not. I’m determined; I’m even stubborn, if you like; but I’m going! So, that’s settled. Now, you said you’d help me. Are you going to back out?”
“No; I’m not. But I can’t approve of it.”
“Oh, you can, if you try hard enough. Just think how much properer it is for me to be companion to a lovely lady in her own house, than to be racing around lower Broadway for patchwork!”
“That’s so,” said Nan, and then she realised that if she knew where Patty was going, they could go and bring her home at any time, if Mr. Fairfield wished.
“Well,” she went on, “who’s your lovely lady?”
“Mrs. Van Reypen.”
“Patty Fairfield! Not the Mrs. Van Reypen?”
“Yes, the very one! Isn’t it gay? She’s a bit eccentric, and she advertised for a companion, saying the application must be a written one. So I pranced up to her house this morning, and secured the position.”
“But she said to apply by letter.”
“Yes; that’s why I went myself! I sent up my card, and a message that I had come in answer to her advertisement. She sent back word that I could go home and write to her. I said I’d write then and there. So I helped myself to her library desk, and wrote out a regular application. In less than five minutes, I was summoned to her august presence, and after looking me over, she engaged me at once. How’s that for quick action?”
“But does she know who you are?”
“Why, she knows my name, and that’s all.”
“But she’s a,—why, she’s sort of an institution.”
“Yes; I know she’s a public benefactor, and all that. But, really, she’s very interesting; though, I fancy she has a quick temper. However, we’ve made the agreement for a week. Then if either of us wants to back out, we’re at liberty to do so.”
“She was willing to arrange it that way?”
“She insisted on it. She never takes anybody until after a week’s trial.”
“What are your duties?”
“Oh, almost nothing. I’m not a social secretary, or anything like that. Merely a companion, to be with her, and read to her occasionally, or perhaps sing to her, and go to drive with her,—and that’s about all.”
“No one else in the family?”
“I don’t think so. She didn’t speak of any one, except her secretary and servants. She’s rather old-fashioned, and the house is dear. All crystal chandeliers, and old frescoed walls and ceilings, and elaborate door-frames. Why, Nan, it’ll be fun to be there a week, and it’s so,—well, so safe and pleasant, you know, and so correct and seemly. Why, if I really had to earn my own living, I couldn’t do better than to be companion to Mrs. Van Reypen.”
“No; I suppose not. What is the salary?”
“Ah, that’s the beauty of it! It’s just fifteen dollars a week. And as I get ‘board and lodging’ beside, I’m really doing better than I agreed to.”
“I don’t like it, Patty,” said Nan, after a few moments’ thought. “But it’s better, in some ways, than the other things you’ve done. Go on, and I’ll truly do all I can to talk your father into letting you stay there a week; but if he won’t consent,