on me! Is there one for me?”
“Yes, yes, child. I didn’t know you wanted it. Yes, here’s one for you. It is postmarked ‘Vernondale.’ Take it, dear one!”
“Nonsense, Ken. Not that one! But isn’t there one from the Rhodes and Geer Motor Company?”
“Why, yes; since you mention it, I notice there is such a one! Do you want it?”
Kenneth held it high above Patty’s head, but she sprang and caught it, and waved it triumphantly in the air.
“I told you so!” she cried.
“But you haven’t opened it yet,” said Elise. “Maybe it only tells you you’ve failed.”
“Hush, hush, little one!” said Patty. “I’ll show it to you in a minute.”
Accepting the letter-opener Kenneth proffered, she cut open the envelope, and read the few lines on the typewritten sheet enclosed. She read them again, and then slowly refolded the sheet and returned it to its envelope.
“After all,” she said, calmly, “it is well to be of a philosophical nature in a time of disappointment.”
“Oh, Patty, you didn’t win!” cried Kenneth, springing to her side, and grasping her hand.
“No, I haven’t won,” said Patty, with a heart-rending sigh.
“I thought you were terribly positive,” said Elise, not very kindly.
“I was,” sighed Patty. “I was terribly positive. I am, still!”
“What are you talking about, Patty?” said Roger, who began to think she was fooling them. “Let me see that letter.”
“Take it!” said Patty, holding it out with a despairing gesture. “Read it aloud, and let them all know the worst!”
So Roger read the few lines, which were to the effect that, owing to the unexpected number of answers received, the decision must be delayed until May first.
“Oh, Patty!” exclaimed Kenneth, greatly relieved. “How you scared me! Of course you’ll get it yet.”
“Of course I shall,” said Patty, serenely, “but I hate to wait.”
Since it was not failure, after all, the young people felt greatly relieved, and congratulated Patty upon her narrow escape.
“But the situation is too dramatic for my nerves,” declared Kenneth. “When the real letter comes, I prefer not to be here. I can’t stand such harrowing scenes.”
“It won’t be harrowing when the real letter comes,” said Patty. “It will be just one grand, triumphant jubilee.”
“Well, jubilees are nerve-racking,” said Kenneth. “I think I’ll stay away until the shouting is over.”
“You can’t,” said Patty, saucily. “You’ll be the first one here, the day the letter is due.”
“Oh, I suppose so! Curiosity has always been my besetting sin. But to-day’s entertainment seems to be over, so I may as well go home.”
“Us, too,” said Roger. “Come on, Elise.”
So good-byes were said, and Patty’s friends went laughing away.
Then Patty took up the letter and read it again.
“Ten days to wait,” she said, to herself. “And suppose I shouldn’t get it, after all? But I will,—I know I will. Something inside my brain makes me feel sure of it. And, when I have that sort of sureness, it never goes back on me!”
She went upstairs, singing merrily, and without a shadow of doubt in her mind as to her success in the contest.
The ten days passed quickly, for Patty was so absorbed in the furnishings for the new summer home that she was occupied every moment from morning till night.
She went with Nan to all sorts of fascinating shops, where they selected wall-papers, rugs, furniture, and curtains. Not much bric-a-brac, and very few pictures, for they were keeping the house simple in tone, but comfortable and cheerful of atmosphere. Christine gladly gave her advice when needed, but she was very busy with her work, and they interrupted her as seldom as possible.
Patty bought lovely things for her own rooms,—chairs of blue and white wicker; curtains of loose-meshed, blue silky stuff, over ruffled dimity ones; a regulation brass bedstead for her bedroom, but a couch that opened into a bed for her out-of-door dormitory. By day, this could be a chintz-covered couch with chintz pillows; by night, a dainty, white nest of downy comfort. Several times they went down to Spring Beach, to inspect the work going on there, and always returned with satisfactory reports.
As the time of departure drew near, Elise began to realise how much she would miss Patty, and lamented accordingly.
“I think you might have arranged to go where we’re going,” she said. “You know you could make your people go wherever you wanted to.”
“But you go to the Adirondacks, Elise; I couldn’t run my motor car much up there.”
“Oh, that motor car! Even if you do get it, Patty, you won’t use it more than a few times. Nobody does.”
“P’raps not. But, somehow, it just seems to me I shall. It just seems to me so. But, Elise, you’ll come down to visit me?”
“Yes; for a few days. But you’ll have Christine there most of the time, I suppose.”
“I’ll have Christine whenever she’ll come,” said Patty, a little sharply; “and, Elise, if you care anything for my friendship, I wish you’d show a little more friendliness toward her.”
“Oh, yes; just because Mr. Hepworth thinks she’s a prodigy, and Mrs. Van Reypen has taken her up socially, you think she’s something great!”
Patty looked at Elise a moment in astonishment at this outburst, and then she broke into a hearty laugh.
“I think you’re something great, Elise! I think you’re a great goose! What kind of talk are you talking? Christine is a dear, sweet, brave girl,—and you know it. Now, drop it, and never, never, never talk like that again.”
Elise was a little ashamed of her unjust speech, and only too glad to turn it off by joining in Patty’s laughter. So she only said, “Oh, Christine’s all right!” and dropped the subject.
By the first of May, everything was ready for occupancy at “The Pebbles.” The lawn and grounds were in fine condition, and the house in perfect order.
But Patty begged that they shouldn’t start until she had received word about her prize car.
“Why, Puss, all the mail will be forwarded,” said her father. “You’ll get your precious missive there just as well as here.”
“I know that, daddy dear,—but, well,—I can’t seem to feel like going, until I know that car is my very own. Just wait until the third of May, can’t you?”
She was so persuasive that Nan went over to her side, and then, of course, Mr. Fairfield had to give his consent to wait. Not that he cared, particularly, but he was a little afraid that Patty would not get the prize, and thought she might bear her disappointment better if away from her young friends.
But they waited, and again the group of those most interested gathered in the Fairfield library to await the letter.
Christine and Mr. Hepworth were there, too, this time; also Philip Van Reypen.
Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield, though outwardly calm and even gay, were perhaps the most anxious of all, for they knew how keenly a disappointment would affect Patty.
The whistle sounded. The postman’s step was heard. Instead of rushing to the door, Patty felt a strange inertia, and