At that moment was heard from below the voice of Mrs. Sanford, calling her daughter; and Patty hastily began her toilet for the early breakfast, already being prepared below by Bathalina Clemens, the maid of all work.
The company assembled around the breakfast-table consisted, in addition to Patty, of her father and mother, her brother Will, and a cousin rejoicing in the euphonious title of Flossy Plant.
Dr. Sanford was a tall, thin-faced gentleman, with deep, kindly eyes, and slightly-stooping shoulders. He would have been hen-pecked, but for the fact that he was so fully aware of his wife's peculiarities as to be able to guard himself against them. He smiled at her vagaries and gallinaceous ways with a quiet, inward sense of humor.
"Your aunt is a very amusing woman," he once said to Flossy Plant; and, indeed, it was sometimes difficult for the whole family not to regard Mrs. Sanford as a species of private Punch and Judy intended for their especial entertainment.
This morning the worthy lady was discussing the church picnic, to take place the following day.
"I think," she said impressively, "that picnics are chiefly bugs and critters; but I suppose it is a duty folks owe to religion to go."
"And to ride there with the gentlemen," put in Flossy, seeing the twinkle in her uncle's eye.
"But the buggies are so terrible narrow nowadays," Mrs. Sanford continued, the breadth of her figure giving point to the remark, "that one is squeezed to death. The last time I rode in one I dreamed, the next night, that I was a postage-stamp on a letter; and, of course, that couldn't be a lucky dream."
"Oh, the narrow buggies are the beauty of it!" Flossy retorted: "it brings you and the gentlemen so close and cosey, you know."