"Oh, I think I'm a fixture for the summer. Aunt Locky wants me to spend my whole vacation here, and I don't know of any good reason why I shouldn't."
"I'm very glad; it will be awfully nice to have you here when the twins are, and perhaps somebody else will be here, too. I'm going to ask Nan Allen."
"Who is she?" inquired Mr. Fairfield.
"Oh, papa, don't you remember about her? She is a friend of the Barlows, and lives near them in Philadelphia, and she was visiting them down at Long Island when I was there last summer. She's perfectly lovely. She's a grown-up young lady, compared to Bumble and me—she's about twenty-two, I think—and I know Kenneth will lose his heart to her. He'll have no more use for schoolgirls."
"Probably not," said Kenneth; "but I'm afraid the adorable young lady will have no use for me. She won't if Hepworth's around, and he usually is. He's always cutting me out."
"Nothing of the sort," said Patty staunchly. "Mr. Hepworth is very nice, but he's papa's friend,"
"And whose friend am I?" said young Harper.
"You're everybody's friend," said Patty, smiling at him. "You're just
'Our Ken.'"
Miss Nan Allen was delighted to accept an invitation to Boxley Hall, and it was arranged that she and the Barlow twins should spend August there.
"A month is quite a long visit, Pattikins," said her father.