daresay; but I won’t begrudge them, if you will put some more flesh on that willowy frame of yours. You’re not strong, Patty, and I want you to devote this summer to building yourself up physically. No study, not much reading, no ‘Puzzle Contest’ work. Just rest, and exercise moderately, and spend most of your time out-of-doors.”
“Why, daddy dear, your plans and specifications exactly suit me! How strange that our ideas should be the same on this subject! You see, with my new Stanhope, I’ll be out-of-doors all day, and, as I propose to sleep in the open, I’ll be out-of-doors all night. Can I do more?”
“I’m not sure about this sleeping outside. You must never do it on damp or foggy nights.”
“Now, father, the sanitariums advise it for everybody—every night. Well, I’ll agree not to sleep out in a thunderstorm, for I’m scared to death of them.”
“And you mustn’t begin it yet, anyway. It’s too cold. Wait until June, and then we’ll see about it.”
“All right, I’ll agree to that. Why, somebody’s coming up the front walk! Nan, here comes our first caller. Wow! She’s a dasher!”
In a few moments, Jane, the new parlour maid, admitted the visitor, and she came in with a self-important flutter.
“How do you do?” she said, cordially. “I’m Miss Galbraith,—Mona Galbraith, your next-door neighbour. At least, we live in the house with red chimneys, two blocks down, but there’s no house between us.”
“How do you do, Miss Galbraith,” said Nan, rising to greet the guest, and followed by the others.
“You see,” went on the young woman, volubly, after she had accepted the seat offered by Mr. Fairfield, “I thought I’d just run right in, informally, for you might feel a bit lonesome or homesick this first day. So many people do.”
“No,” said Patty, smiling, “we’re not lonesome or homesick, but it was nice of you to come to see us in this neighbourly fashion. Have a muffin, won’t you?”
“Indeed, I will; what delicious muffins! Did you bring your servants with you?”
“Some of them,” said Nan. “We’re simple people, and haven’t a large retinue.”
“Well, we have,” said Miss Galbraith. “And I’m at the head of the whole bunch. Just father and I; we live alone, you know. Will you come to see us? Come to dinner, soon, won’t you?”
“We’ll see about it,” said Nan, who scarcely knew how to take this self-possessed and somewhat forward young person.
Miss Galbraith wore a costume of embroidered white linen, but the embroidery was too elaborate, and the style of the gown rather extreme. She wore a long gold chain, with what Patty afterward called half a peck of “junk” dangling from it. There were a lorgnette, a purse, a cardcase, a pencil, a vinaigrette, a well-filled key-ring, and several other trifles, all attached to the chain, and Miss Galbraith played with the trinkets incessantly.
“I hope we’ll be real good friends,” she said, earnestly, to Patty. “I want an intimate friend awfully, and I like your looks.”
As Patty couldn’t honestly return the compliment, she said nothing in reply. Miss Galbraith’s personal appearance was comely, and yet it was not of the type with which Patty was accustomed to be friendly. Her sandy hair was too much curled and puffed, piled too high on her head, and held with too many jewelled pins; while her rather large hands showed too many rings for a young girl.
Her high-heeled, white shoes were too tight for her, and her easy attitudes and frank speech were too informal for a first call on strangers.
“Of course, we shall be friends,” said Nan, with just enough absence of enthusiasm in her tones to convey to a sensitive mind her reservations.
But Miss Galbraith hadn’t a sensitive mind.
“Dear Mrs. Fairfield,” she said, effusively, “how good you are! I see you have the neighbourly instinct. Isn’t it nice that we’ll all be down here together for the whole summer? Do you swim, Miss Fairfield? and do you love to dance?”
“Yes,” began Patty, “but——”
As she hesitated, Mr. Fairfield came to his daughter’s rescue.
“To be frank, Miss Galbraith,” he said, “I am trying to keep my daughter rather quiet this summer. I want her to exercise only moderately, and I must positively forbid much dancing, and late hours, and all that sort of thing.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” returned the visitor; “nobody keeps very late hours at Spring Beach. Well, I must run away now,—and I give you fair warning! If you don’t come and return my call soon, I’ll come straight over here and return it myself!”
She shook a playful finger at Patty, and, after voluble leave-takings, she went away, tripping down the walk with the satisfied air of one who has accomplished her object.
“Well!” said Patty, with an air of utter exasperation.
“Well!” exclaimed Nan.
Mr. Fairfield smiled grimly.
“It’s our own fault,” he said. “We should have enquired as to the character of the neighbours before we bought the house.”
“How soon can you sell it, father?” asked Patty. “One more visitation like that would give me nervous prostration! Mona! Mona, indeed! I never saw a Mona before, but I might have known they were like that.”
“But can’t you really stay here?” asked Mr. Fairfield, in alarm.
“Nonsense, daddy, of course we can! Do you think I’d let myself be dispossessed by a mere Mona? No, sir; Nan and I can manage her.”
“I don’t quite see how,” said Nan, thoughtfully. “She’s that impossible sort. Oblivious to manner, impervious to hints. Patty, she’s dreadful!”
“Of course she is, Sweet Nancy. She isn’t our sort. But I’ll attend to her. I don’t know how, just yet, but I’ll find out. She’s a problem to be coped with, a difficulty to be overcome. But did you ever see such a gown? There was just enough embroidery on it for three self-respecting frocks. And her hair! Looked like the wax ladies’ coiffures in the hair-store windows!”
“Don’t make rude personal remarks, Patty, girl.”
“Oh, father, as if one could be rude to an object like that! Well, people dear, let’s put her out of our minds and hearts for the rest of to-day, anyway. I won’t have the birthday of ‘The Pebbles’ spoiled by a slight incident like that. Forget it!”
And so the impossible Miss Galbraith was voluntarily ignored.
Chapter VIII.
Swift Camilla
At last the car came. Patty was in a flutter of joyous expectation, and, as Miller came whirring up the drive in it, the whole family assembled on the veranda to admire it.
“Isn’t it a beauty, Nan! Oh, isn’t it?” Patty exclaimed, as the sunlight flashed gold sparkles on the shining paint.
“It is, indeed, Patty. I never saw such a pretty one. Are you sure you can run it?”
“Oh, yes! I know how already. You just stick in a key and turn it, and grab the brake-handle, and take hold of the steering bar, and push and pull whenever you think you ought to.”
“Not very technical language,” said Mr. Fairfield, smiling, “but I think you understand the operation. Jump in, Puss; I’m going with you for your first spin.”