Patty's Success Part 42

She knew herself she couldn't write such a letter as this occasion required, and she knew that Nan could. So she smiled meekly at Mr.

Hepworth, and said:

"No, I couldn't. But Nan can be tactful to beat the band!"

"Oh, Patty!" said her father. "Did you talk like that to Mrs. Van Reypen?

No wonder she discharged you!"

"No, I didn't, daddy; truly I didn't. I never used a word of slang that whole week, except one day when I talked to Nan over the telephone."

"Soon you'll be old enough to begin to think it's time to stop using it at all," observed Mr. Hepworth, and again Patty took his mild reproof in good part.

"Well, I'll write," said Nan. "Shall I ask Miss Farley to come to visit us? Won't she think that rather queer?"

"Don't put it just that way," advised Mr. Hepworth. "Say that you, as a friend of mine, are interested in her career. And say that if she will come to New York for a week and stay with you, you think you can help her make arrangements for a course in the Art School. Your own tact will dress up the idea so as to make it palatable to her pride."

"Won't it be fun?" exclaimed Patty. "It will be almost like adopting a sister. What is she like, Mr. Hepworth? Like me?"

"She is about as unlike you as it is possible for a girl to be. She is very slender, dark, and timid, with the air of a frightened animal."

"I'll scare her to death," declared Patty, with conviction. "I'm sure I shall! I don't mean on purpose, but I'm so--so _sudden_, you know."

"Yes, you are," agreed Mr. Hepworth, as he joined in the general laughter. "But that 'suddenness' of yours is a quality that I wish Miss Farley possessed. It is really a sort of brave impulse and quick determination that makes you dash into danger or enterprise of any kind."

"And win!" added Patty saucily.

"Yes, and win--after a time."

"Oh well," she replied, tossing her head, "Mr. Bruce's spider made seven attempts before he succeeded. So I think my record's pretty fair."

"I think so, too," said Mr. Hepworth, heartily. "And I congratulate you on your plucky perseverance and your indomitable will. You put up a brave fight, and you won. I know how you suffered under that petty tyranny, and your success in such circ.u.mstances was a triumph!"

"Thank you," said Patty, greatly pleased at this sincere praise from one whom she so greatly respected. "It would have been harder still if I hadn't had a good sense of humour. Lots of times when I wanted to cry I laughed instead."

"Hurrah for you, Patty girl!" cried her father. "I'd rather you'd have a good sense of humour than a talent for spatter-work!"

"Oh, you back number!" exclaimed Patty. "They don't do spatter-work now, daddy."

"Well, china painting--or whatever the present fad is."

But Mr. Hepworth seemed not to place so high a value on a sense of humour, for he said, gravely:

"I congratulate you on your steadfastness of purpose, which is one of the finest traits of your character."

"Thank you," said Patty, with dancing eyes. "You give it a nice name. But it is a family trait with us Fairfields, and has usually been called 'stubbornness.'"

"Well," supplemented her father, "I'm sure that's just as good a name."

CHAPTER XIX

CHRISTINE COMES

With her usual tact and cleverness, Nan managed the whole matter successfully. She wrote to the friends of Mr. Hepworth in the South who were interested in Miss Farley, and they persuaded the girl to go North for a week and see if she could see her way clear to staying there.

As it turned out, Miss Farley had some acquaintances in New York, and when their invitation was added to that of Mrs. Fairfield, she decided to make the trip.

Patty and Nan made ready for her with great care and kindness. A guest room was specially prepared for her use, and Patty adorned it with some of her own pet pictures, a few good casts, and certain bits of bric-a-brac that she thought would appeal to an "art student."

"If Mr. Hepworth hadn't said the girl had real talent I'd be hopeless of the whole thing," said Nan, "for I do think the most futile sort of young woman is the one who dabbles in Art, with a big A."

"Oh, Christine Farley isn't that sort," declared Patty. "I don't believe she wears her hair tumbling down and a Byron collar with a big, black ribbon bow at her throat. I used to see that sort copying in the art galleries in Paris, and they _are_ hopeless. But I imagine Miss Farley is a tidy little thing and her genius is too real for those near-art effects."

"Well, then, I'll put this photograph of the Hermes in here in place of this fiddle-de-dee Art Calendar. She'll like it better."

"Of course she will. And I'm going to put a pretty kimono and slippers in the wardrobe. Probably she won't have pretty ones, and I know she'll love 'em."

"If you owned a white elephant, Patty, you'd get a kimono for it, wouldn't you?"

"'Course I would. I love kimonos--pretty ones. And besides, it would fit an elephant better than a Directoire gown would."

"Patty! What a goose you are! There, now the room looks lovely! The flowers are just right--not too many and just in the right places."

"Yes," agreed Patty; "if she doesn't like this room I wash my hands of her. But she will."

And she did. When the small, shy Southern girl arrived that afternoon, and Patty herself showed her up to her room, she seemed to respond at once to the warm cosiness of the place.

"It's just such a room as I've often imagined, but I've never seen," she said, smiling round upon the dainty, attractive appointments.

"You dear!" cried Patty, throwing her arms round her guest and kissing her.

When she had first met Christine downstairs she was embarra.s.sed herself at the Southern girl's painful shyness.

When Miss Farley had tried to speak words of greeting a lump came into her throat and she couldn't speak at all.

To put her more at her ease Patty had led her at once upstairs, and now the presence of only warm-hearted Patty and the view of the welcoming room made her forget her embarra.s.sment and seem more like her natural self.

"I cannot thank you," she began. "I am a bit bewildered by it all."

"Of course you are," said Patty, cheerily. "Don't bother about thanks.

And don't feel shy. Let's pretend we've known each other for years--long enough to use first names. May I take your hat off, Christine?"

Tears sprang to Christine Farley's eyes at this whole-souled welcome, and she said:

"You make me ashamed of my stupid shyness. Really I'll try to overcome it--Patty."

And soon the two girls were chatting cosily and veritably as if they had been acquainted a long time.