Patty's Success Part 23

"I do indeed; I selected it with utmost care."

"Yes, it's a gem. Perfectly flawless. Well, I'll get it, and see if we can see things in it."

Patty ran for her crystal, and returning to the library held it up to the fading sunlight, and tried to look into it.

"That isn't the way, Patty; you have to lay it on black velvet, or something dark."

"Oh, do you? Well, here's a dark mat on this table. Try that."

They gazed intently into the ball, and though they could see nothing, Patty felt a weird sense of uncanniness.

Ken laughed when she declared this, and said:

"Nothing in the world but suggestion. You think a j.a.panese crystal _ought_ to make you feel supernatural, and so you imagine it does. But it doesn't any such nonsense. Now, I'll tell you why I like them. Only because they're so flawlessly perfect. In shape, colour, texture,--if you can call it texture,--but I mean material or substance. There isn't an attribute that they possess, except in perfection. That's a great thing, Patty; and you can't say it of anything else."

"The stars," said Patty, trying to look wise.

"Oh, pshaw! I mean things made by man."

"Great pictures," she suggested.

"Their perfection is a matter of opinion. One man deems a picture perfect, another man does not. But a crystal ball is indubitably perfect."

"Indubitably is an awful big word," said Patty. "I'm afraid of it."

"Never mind," said Kenneth, kindly, "I won't let it hurt you."

Then the doorbell rang, and in a moment in came Elise and Roger.

"h.e.l.lo, Ken," said Elise. "We came for Patty to go skating. Will you go, too?"

"I can't go to-day," said Patty, "I'm too tired. And it's too late, anyway. You stay here, and we'll have tea."

"All right, I don't care," said Elise, taking off her furs.

The quartette gathered round the library fire, and Jane brought in the tea things.

Patty made tea very prettily, for she excelled in domestic accomplishments, and as she handed Kenneth his cup, she said, roguishly, "There's a perfect cup of tea, I can a.s.sure you."

"Perfect tea, all right," returned Ken, sipping it, "but a cup of tea can't be a perfect thing, as it hasn't complete symmetry of form."

"What are you two talking about?" demanded Elise, who didn't want Ken and Patty to have secrets from which she was excluded.

"Speaking of crystal b.a.l.l.s," said Patty, "I'll show you one, Elise; a big one, too! Get Darby and Juliet, won't you please, Ken?"

Kenneth obligingly brought the gla.s.s globe in from the dining-room, where they had left the goldfish to be by themselves.

"How jolly!" cried Elise. "And what lovely goldfish! These are the real j.a.panese ones, aren't they?"

"Yes," said Patty, smiling at Ken. "Being j.a.panese, they're perfect of their kind. Make them stand on their tails and beg, Kenneth."

"Oh, will they do that?" said Elise.

"Only on Wednesdays and Sat.u.r.days," said Kenneth, gravely. "And on Fridays they sing. To-day is their rest day."

"They look morbid," said Roger. "Shall I jolly them up a bit?"

"Let's give them tea," said Elise, tilting her spoon until a few drops fell into the water.

"You'll make them nervous," warned Patty, "and Juliet is high-strung, anyway."

Then Nan came in from her afternoon's round of calls, and then Mr.

Fairfield arrived, and they too were called upon to make friends with Darby and Juliet.

"Goldfish always make me think of a story about Whistler," said Mr.

Fairfield. "It seems, Whistler once had a room in a house in Florence, directly over a person who had some pet goldfish in a bowl. Every pleasant day the bowl was set out on the balcony, which was exactly beneath Whistler's balcony. For days he resisted the temptation to fish for them with a bent pin and a string; but at last he succ.u.mbed to his angling instincts, and caught them all. Then, remorseful at what he had done, he fried them to a fine golden brown, and returned them to their owner on a platter."

"Ugh!" cried Nan, "what a horrid story! Why do they always tack unpleasant stories on poor old Whistler? Now, I know a lovely story about a goldfish, which I will relate. It is said to be the composition of a small Boston schoolchild.

"'Oh, Robin, lovely goldfish!

Who teached you how to fly?

Who sticked the fur upon your breast?

'Twas G.o.d, 'twas G.o.d what done it.'

Isn't that lovely?"

"It is, indeed," agreed Kenneth. "If that's Boston precocity, it's more attractive than I thought."

"But it doesn't rhyme," said Elise.

"No," said Patty; "that's the beauty of it. It's blank verse, as the greatest poetry often is. Don't go yet, Elise. Stay to dinner, can't you?"

"No, I can't stay to-night, Patty, dear. Will you go skating to-morrow?"

Patty hesitated. She wanted to go, but also she wanted to get at that "occupation" of hers, for she had a new one in view.

She was about to say she would go skating, however, when she saw a twinkle in her father's eye that made her change her mind.

"Can't, Elise," she said. "I've an engagement to-morrow. Will telephone you some day when I can go."

"Well, don't wait too long; the ice will be all gone."

Then the young people went away, and Patty went thoughtfully upstairs to her room to dress for dinner.

CHAPTER XI