"What are your questions?" said Patty, not wishing to make any rash promises.
"Well, first, are you really keeping that big house over there all alone by yourself?"
"I'm keeping house there, yes, but I'm not all alone by myself. My father's there, and two servants."
"Don't you keep a man?"
"No; a man comes every day to do the hard work, but he doesn't live with us."
"Humph, I suppose you think you're pretty smart, don't you?"
"I don't know," said Patty slowly, as if considering; "yes, I think I'm pretty smart in some ways, and in other ways I'm as stupid as an owl."
"Well, you must be pretty smart, because you haven't had to borrow anything over here yet."
"But I wouldn't borrow anything here, anyway, Miss Daggett; you specially asked me not to."
Miss Daggett's old wrinkled face broke into a smile.
"And so you remember that. Well, well, you are a nice little girl; you must have had a good mother, and a good bringing-up."
"My mother died when I was three, and my father brought me up."
"He did, hey? Well, he made a fairly good job of it. Now, I guess you can go; I'm about tired of talking to you."
"Then I will go. But, first, Miss Daggett, let me tell you that I met your nephew the other day."
"Kenneth! For the land's sake! Well, well, sit down again. I don't want you to go yet; tell me all about him. Isn't he a nice boy? Hasn't he fine eyes? And gentlemanly manners? And oh, the lovely ways with him!"
"Yes, Miss Daggett, he is indeed a nice boy; my father and I both think so. His eyes and his manners are fine. He says he wants to come out to see you soon."
"Bless his heart, I hope he'll come! I do hope he'll come."
"Then you like to have him come to see you?" said Patty, a little roguishly.
"Yes, and I like to have you, too. Land, child! you mustn't mind my quick ways."
"I don't mind how quick you are," said Patty; "but when you tell me to be sure and not come to see you, of course I don't come."
"Oh, that's all right," said Miss Daggett, "that's all right; I'll always send for you when I want you.
"But perhaps I can't always come," said Patty. "I may be busy with my housekeeping."
"Now, wouldn't that be annoying!" said Miss Daggett. "I declare that would be just my luck. I always do have bad luck."
"Perhaps it's the way you look at it," said Patty. "Now, I have some things that seem like bad luck, at least, other people think they do; but if I look at them right--happy and cheerful, you know--why, they just seem like good luck."
"Really," said Miss Daggett, with a curious smile; "well now, you are a queer child, and I'm not at all sure but I'd like to have you come again. Do you want to see around my house?"
"I'd like to very much, but it's so dark a bat couldn't see things in this room."
"But I can't open the shades, the sun would fade all the furniture coverings."
"Well, then, you could buy new ones," said Patty; "that would be better than living in the dark."
"Dark can't hurt anybody," said Miss Daggett gloomily.
"Oh, indeed it can," said Patty earnestly. "Why, darkness--I mean darkness in the daytime--makes you all stewed up and fidgety and horrid; and sunshine makes you all gay and cheerful and glad."
"Like you," said Miss Daggett.
"Yes, like me," said Patty; "I am cheerful and glad always. I like to be."
"I would like to be, too," said Miss Daggett.
"Do you suppose if I opened the shutters I would be?"
"Let's try it and see," said Patty, and running to the windows, she flung open the inside blinds and flooded the room with sunshine.
"Oh, what a beautiful room!" she exclaimed, as she turned around. "Why, Miss Daggett, to think of keeping all these lovely things shut up in the dark. I believe they cry about it when you aren't looking."
Already the old lady's face seemed to show a gentler and sunnier expression, and she said:
"Yes, I have some beautiful things, child. Would you like to look through this cabinet of East Indian curiosities?"
"I would very much," said Patty, "but I fear I can't take the time this morning; I have to study my part in a play we're going to give. It's a play your nephew told us about," she added quickly, feeling sure that this would rouse the old lady's interest in it.
"One of Kenneth's college plays?" she said eagerly.
"Yes, that's just what it is. A chum of his wrote it, and oh, Miss Daggett, we're going to invite Mr. Harper to come to Vernondale the night of the play, and take the same part that he took at college last year; you see, he'll know it, and he can just step right in."
"Good for you! I hope he'll come. I'll write at once and tell him how much I want him. He can stay here, of course, and perhaps he can come sooner, so as to be here for one or two rehearsals."
"That would be a good help. I hope he will do that; he could coach the rest of us."
"I don't know just what coach means, but I'm sure Kenneth can do it, he's a very clever boy; he says he can run an automobile, but I don't believe it. Run away home now, child, I'm tired of having company; and besides I want to compose my mind so I can write a letter to Kenneth."
"And will you leave your blinds open till afternoon?" said Patty, who was beginning to learn her queer old neighbour.
"Yes, I will, if I don't forget it. Clear out, child, clear out now; run away home and mind you're not to borrow anything and you're not to come back till I send for you."
"All right," said Patty. "Good-bye, and mind, you're to keep bright and cheerful, and let the sunlight in all the time."
Chapter XV.
Bills
Patty's plans for systematic housekeeping included a number of small Russia-leather account books, and she looked forward with some eagerness to the time when the first month's bills should come in, and she could present to her father a neat and accurate statement of the household expenses for the month.
The 1st of February was Sunday, but on Monday morning the postman brought a sheaf of letters which were evidently bills.
Patty had no time to look at these before she went to school, so she placed them carefully in her desk, determined to hurry home that afternoon and get her accounts into apple-pie order before her father came home. After school she returned to find a supplementary lot of bills had been left by the postman, and also Mancy presented her with a number of bills which the tradesmen had left that morning.
Patty took the whole lot to her desk, and with methodical exactness noted the amounts on the pages of her little books. She and her father had talked the matter over, more or less, and Patty knew just about what Mr. Fairfield expected the bills to amount to.
But to her consternation she discovered, as she went along, that each bill was proving to be about twice as large as she had anticipated.
"There must be some mistake," she said to herself, "we simply _can't_ have eaten all those groceries. Anybody would think we ran a branch store. And that butcher's bill is big enough for the Central Park menagerie! They must have added it wrong."
But a careful verification of the figures proved that they were