After the little happening in the conservatory on the evening of the party, Aunt Matilda spoke plainly to Arabella about her choice of playmates.
“I don't approve of that Lavine girl,” she had said.
“You don't know her,” ventured Arabella.
“I don't need to,” was the curt reply. “A girl that can't go to a party without meddling with things, and getting into mischief, is not the girl that I care to have you with, and there's no reason why you should go to the other end of the town to find a playmate; there are enough pleasant girls in your own school.”
Aunt Matilda's words were true, but with Arabella's contrary nature, the fact that her aunt did not approve of Patricia, made her the most desirable of all her playmates.
She at once decided to spend the next Saturday with Patricia. She did not dare to ask Patricia to call for her, because Aunt Matilda, if exasperated, might send her home, and Patricia would never overlook that. She had just decided to invite herself to visit Patricia when something happened which delighted her.
It was after school, and they were talking of the coming Saturday, and how it should be spent.
“We've not seen you driving your pony for a long time,” said Katie Dean.
“We are going out with Romeo on Saturday,” Dorothy said.
“There's a lovely road where the great icicles hang from the trees like fringe, and the groom says it's the finest road for sleighing in Merrivale.”