Patty's Fortune. Wells Carolyn
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’em.”
So, followed by the whole laughing troop, Adele and Jim chose their apartments. They selected two elaborate suites on the second floor, for Bill told them that there were scores of servants, and they were better off if they had work to do.
“Isn’t it heavenly?” sighed Elise Farrington, dropping for a moment on a cushioned window-seat, in Adele’s sitting-room, and gazing at the beautiful view. “I want my rooms on this side of the house, too.”
“All the girls on this side,” decreed Adele, “and all the men on the other. Or, if the men want a lake view, they can go up on the next floor. If I have to comfort you girls, when you’re weeping with homesickness, I want you near by. Marie, you’re most addicted to nostalgia, I recommend you take this suite next to mine.”
So Marie was installed in a lovely apartment, next Adele’s and with practically the same view of the lake and hills.
Daisy’s came next, then Mona’s, and Patty’s last. This brought Patty at the other end of the long house, and just suited her. “For,” she said, “there’s a balcony to this suite, and if I feel romantic, I can come out here and bay the moon.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, young woman,” said Adele, severely. “You do that moon-baying act, and you’ll be kidnapped again.”
“No, thank you,” and Patty shuddered, “I’ve had quite enough of that!”
The rooms were beautifully furnished, in good taste and harmonious colourings. The hotel had been planned on an elaborate scale, but for some reason, probably connected with the management, had not been successful in this, its first season; and in swinging a business deal of some big lumber tracts in that vicinity, it had fallen into Farnsworth’s hands. He had no intention of keeping it, but intended to sell it to advantage. But at present, it was his own property and he had conceived the whim of this large-sized picnic.
“Boom! Boom!” sounded Channing’s deep bass voice in the hall. “That’s the dressing-gong, people. Dinner in half an hour. No full dress tonight. Just a fresh blouse and a flower in your hair, girls.”
“Isn’t he great?” said Patty to Mona, as they responded through their closed doors.
But the girls’ suites of rooms could all be made to communicate, and they ran back and forth without using the main hall.
“He is,” agreed Mona, who was brushing her hair at Patty’s dressing-table. “And the more you see of him, the better you’ll like him. He’s shy at first.”
“Shy! That great, big thing shy?”
“Yes; he tries to conceal it, but he is. Not with men, you know, – but afraid of girls. Don’t tease him, Patty.”
“Me tease him!” and Patty looked like an injured saint. “I’m going to be a Fairy Godmother to him. I’ll take care of him and shield him from you hoydens, with your wiles. Now, go to your own rooms, Mona. I should think, with half a dozen perfectly good rooms of your own, you might let me have mine.”
“I can’t bear to leave you, Patty. You’re not much to look at, – I know, – but somehow I forget your plainness, when – ”
Mona dodged a powder-puff that Patty threw at her, and ran away to her own rooms.
Half an hour later, Patty went slowly down the grand staircase.
Adele had decreed no evening dress that first night, so Patty wore a little afternoon frock of flowered Dresden silk. It was simply made, with a full skirt and many little flounces, and yellowed lace ruffles fell away from her pretty throat and soft dimpled arms. Its pale colouring and crisp frilliness suited well her dainty type, and she looked a picture as she stood for a moment halfway down the stairs.
“Well, if you aren’t a sight for gods and little fishes!” exclaimed a deep voice, and Patty saw Chickering Channing gazing at her from the hall below. “Come on down, – let me eat you.”
As Patty reached the last step, he grasped her lightly with his two hands and swung her to the floor beside him.
“Well!” exclaimed Patty, decidedly taken aback at this performance. “Will you wait a minute while I revise my estimate of you?”
“For better or worse?”
“That sounds like something – I can’t think what – Declaration of Independence, I guess.”
“Wrong! It’s from the Declaration of Dependence. But why revise?”
“Oh, I’ve ticketed you all wrong! Mona said you were shy! Shy!”
“Methinks the roguish Mona was guying you! Shyness is not my strong point. But, if you prefer it should be, I’ll cultivate it till I can shy with the best of them. Would you like me better shy?”
“Indeed I should, if only to save me the trouble of that revision.”
“Shy it is, then.” Whereupon Mr. Channing began to fidget and stand on one foot, then the other, and even managed to blush, as he stammered out, “I s-say, Miss F-Fairfield, – ”
It was such a perfect, yet not overdone burlesque of an embarrassed youth, that Patty broke into peals of laughter.
“Don’t!” she cried. “Be yourself, whatever it is. I can’t revise back and forth every two minutes! I say, Mr. Chickering Channing, you’re going to be great fun, aren’t you?”
“Bid me to live and I will live, your Funnyman to be. Whatever you desire, I’m it. So you see, I am a nice, handy man to have in the house.”
“Indeed you are. I foresee we shall be friends. But what can I call you? That whole title, as I just used it, is too long, – even for this big house.”
“You know what the rest call me.”
Patty pouted a little. “I never call people what other people call them.”
“Oh, Lord, more trouble!” and Chick rolled his eyes as if in despair. “Well, choose a name for yourself – ”
“No, I want one for you!”
“Oh, what a funny young miss! Well, choose, but don’t be all night about it. And I warn you if I don’t like it, I won’t let you use it.”
“‘Shy!’ Oh, my!” murmured Patty. “Well, I shall call you Chickadee, whether you like it or not.”
“Oh, I like it, – I love it! But, nearly as many people call me that as Chick!”
“And I thought it was original with me! All right, I’ll think up another, and I shan’t speak to you again until I’ve thought of it.”
Nonchalantly turning aside, Patty walked across the great hall to where a few of the others had already gathered.
“Pretty Patty,” said Kit Cameron, in his wheedling way; “wilt thou stroll with me, after dinner, through the moonlight?”
“She wilt not,” answered Adele, for her. “Look here, young folks, if I’m to chaperon you, I’m going to be pretty strict about it. No strollings in moonlights for yours! If you want gaiety, you may have a dance in the ballroom. The strolling can wait till tomorrow, and then we’ll all go for a nice walk round the lake.”
“A dance!” cried Patty, “better yet! Who would go mooning if there’s a dance on? I’ll give you the first one, Kit. Oh, you haven’t asked for it, have you?”
“But I have, Patty,” said Farnsworth’s voice over her shoulder, “will you give it to me?”
“I promised Kit,” said Patty, shortly, and then she turned to speak to Bob Peyton about a golf game next day.
CHAPTER III
A MIDNIGHT MESSAGE
Dinner in the big dining-room was great fun. A large, round table had been prepared for the party, and the smaller, unoccupied tables all about, were also decorated with flowers to give a festive atmosphere.
As