sure the effect will be charming.”
Mollified at this, Mrs. Van Reypen smiled benignly on her companion, and also smiled admiringly at her own mirrored reflection.
“Now,” said Patty, as, a little later, she brought the completed hat for inspection, “I will try this on and see how it looks.”
Mrs. Van Reypen seated herself again in front of her dressing mirror, and with gestures worthy of Madame Villard herself, Patty placed the hat on her head.
“It’s most becoming,” began Patty, when Mrs. Van Reypen interrupted her.
“Becoming?” she cried. “It is dreadful! It is fearful. It makes me look like an old woman!”
With an angry jerk she snatched the offending hat from her head and threw it across the room.
Patty was about to give a horrified exclamation when the funny side of it struck her, and she burst into laughter. Mrs. Van Reypen was really an elderly lady, and her angry surprise at being made to look like one seemed very funny to Patty.
But in a moment she understood the case.
She had thought the hat in question of too youthful a type for Mrs. Van Reypen, and in retrimming it had made it more subdued and of a quieter, more elderly fashion.
But she now realised that she had been expected to make it of even gayer effect than it had shown at first. This was an easy matter, and picking up the hat she straightened it out, and hastily catching up a bunch of pink roses and a glittering buckle, she said:
“Oh, it isn’t finished yet; these other trimmings I want to put in place while the hat is on your head.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Van Reypen, only half-convinced.
But she sat down again, and Patty replaced the hat, and then adjusted the roses and the buckle, giving the whole a dainty, pretty effect, which though over-youthful, perhaps, was really very becoming to the fine-looking old lady.
“Charming!” she exclaimed, letting her recent display of bad temper go without apology. “I felt sure you could do it. This afternoon we will go out to the shops and buy some materials, and you shall make me another hat.”
They did so, and, though it meant an afternoon of rather strenuous shopping, Patty didn’t mind it much, for Mrs. Van Reypen couldn’t fly into a rage in the presence of the salespeople.
And so the days dragged by. Patty had hard work to keep her own temper when her employer was unreasonably cross and snappish, but she stuck to her plan of flattering her, and it worked well more often than not.
Nor was she insincere. There were so many admirable qualities and traits of Mrs. Van Reypen that she really admired, it was easy enough to tell her so, and invariably the lady was pleased.
But she often broke out into foolish, unjustifiable rages, and then Patty had to wait meekly until they passed over.
But when, at last, Wednesday evening had gone by, and she went to her room, knowing it was the last night she should spend under that roof, she was glad indeed.
“Another week of this would give me nervous prostration!” she said to herself. “But to-morrow my week is up, and that means Success! I have really and truly succeeded in earning my own living for a week, and I’m glad and proud of it. I knew I should succeed, but I confess I didn’t think I’d score so many failures first. But perhaps that makes my success all the sweeter. Anyway, I’m jolly glad I’m going home to-morrow. Wow! but I’m homesick.”
Then she tumbled into bed, and soon forgot her homesickness in a sound, dreamless sleep.
Patty had been uncertain whether to tell Mrs. Van Reypen the true story of her week of companionship or not; but on Thursday morning she decided she would do so.
And, as it chanced, after breakfast Mrs. Van Reypen herself opened the way for Patty’s confidences.
“Miss Fairfield,” she said, as they sat down in the library, “you know our trial week is up to-day.”
“Yes, Mrs. Van Reypen, and you remember that either of us has the privilege of terminating our engagement to-day.”
“I do remember, and, though I fear you will be greatly disappointed, I must tell you that I have decided that I cannot keep you as my companion.”
As Patty afterward told Nan, she was “struck all of a heap.”
She had been wondering how she should persuade Mrs. Van Reypen to let her go, and now the lady was voluntarily dismissing her! It was so sudden and so unexpected that Patty showed her surprise by her look of blank amazement.
“I knew you’d feel dreadful about it,” went on Mrs. Van Reypen, with real regret in her tone, “but I cannot help it. You are not, by nature, fitted for the position. You are—I don’t exactly know how to express it, but you are not of a subservient disposition.”
“No,” said Patty, “I’m not. But I have tried to do as you wanted me to.”
“Yes, I could see that. But you are too high-strung to be successful in a position of this kind. You should be more deferential in spirit as well as in manner. Do I make myself clear?”
“You do, Mrs. Van Reypen,” said Patty, smiling; “so clear that I am going to tell you the truth about this whole business. I’m not really obliged to earn my own living. I have a happy home and loving parents. My father, though not a millionaire, is wealthy and generous enough to supply all my wants, and the reason I took this position with you is a special and peculiar one, which I will tell you about if you care to hear.”
“You sly puss!” cried Mrs. Van Reypen, with a smile that indicated relief rather than dismay at Patty’s revelation. “Then you’ve been only masquerading as a companion?”
“Yes,” said Patty, smiling back at her, “that’s about the size of it.”
Chapter XVIII.
Home Again
After Patty had told Mrs. Van Reypen the whole story of her efforts to earn her living for a week, and why she had undertaken such a thing, she found herself occupying a changed place in that lady’s regard.
“It was fine of you, perfectly fine!” Mrs. Van Reypen declared, “to sacrifice yourself, your tastes, and your time for a noble end like that.”
“Don’t praise me more than I deserve,” said Patty, smiling. “I did begin the game with a charitable motive, but I thought it was going to be easy. When I found it difficult I fear I kept on rather from stubbornness than anything else.”
“I don’t call it stubbornness, Miss Fairfield; I call it commendable perseverance, and I’m glad you’ve told me your story. Of course, I wouldn’t have wished you to tell me at first, for had I known it I wouldn’t have taken you. But you have honestly tried to do your work well, and you succeeded as well as you could. But, as I told you, you are not made for that sort of thing. Your disposition is not that of a subordinate, and I am glad you do not really have to be one. You have earned your salary this week, however, and I gladly pay you the fifteen dollars we agreed upon.”
Mrs. Van Reypen handed Patty the money, and as the girl took it she said, earnestly: “As you may well believe, Mrs. Van Reypen, this money means more to me than any I have ever before received in my life. It is the first I have ever earned by my own exertions, and, unless I meet with reverses of fortune, it will probably be the last. But, more than that, it proves my success in the somewhat doubtful enterprise I undertook and it assures a chance, at least, of another girl’s success in life.”
“I am greatly interested in your young art student,” went on Mrs. Van