The gig was quite close now. Patricia's heart gave a great jump, then seemed to stand quite still.
She hadn't come!
There was a lady in the gig with Daddy; but—
Patricia turned sharply, and regardless of her shoes ran swiftly back up the driveway and through the garden to the meadow beyond; never stopping until she dropped, a little breathless heap, beside the brook.
Custard barked excitedly, thinking it some new move in this grandmother game; then suddenly he poked his cold black nose in under the tossed thatch of Patricia's brown curls. For Patricia was crying—and doing it quite as earnestly and as thoroughly as she did most things.
At last she sat up, dabbing her eyes.
"She didn't come! And we were all ready—and now it can't be just the same—when she does come. Custard, do you suppose it's a—a judgment on me, for taking the punchbowl?"
Custard looked sober.
"I'll go put it right back. Oh, dear, I do hope that other person hasn't stayed to supper!"
Patricia went back to the house, forlorn, bedraggled; very different from the Patricia whom Sarah had sent downstairs not an hour before, imploring her to "try and keep smarted up for once."