"I speak for a seat in one of the victorias," said Aunt Alice; "and I think it wise to get my claim in quickly, as the bids are being made so rapidly."
"I don't care how I go," said Patty, "or what I go in. I'm so amiable, a child can play with me to-day. I'll go in a wheelbarrow, if necessary."
"I had hoped to drive you over myself," said Mr. Hepworth, who sat next to her, speaking in a low tone; "but I'll push you in a wheelbarrow, if you prefer."
"You go with me, Patty, in one of the traps, won't you?" said Kenneth, who sat on the veranda railing at her other side.
Patty's face took on a comical smile of amusement at these two requests, but she answered both at once by merrily saying:
"Then it all adjusts itself. Mr. and Mrs. Allen and Mr. and Mrs. Elliott shall have the most comfortable carriage, and Marian and Mr. Hepworth and Ken and I will go in the other."
That seemed to be the, best possible arrangement, and about three o'clock the procession started.
Patty and Marian took the back seat of the open carriage, Mr. Hepworth and Kenneth Harper sat facing them.
As Marian had already become very much interested in her new fad of authorship, and as under Miss Fischer's tuition she was rapidly developing into a real little blue-stocking, it is not strange that the conversation turned in that direction.
"I looked in all the bookshops in the city for your latest works, Miss Marian," said Mr. Hepworth, "but they must have been all sold out, for I couldn't find any."