"Den dat's all right," said Mancy. "I kin look after you two chilluns, I 'spect, and get my work done, too. When shall I come?"
"The house isn't quite ready yet," said Patty; "but I hope to go there to live on New Year's day."
"I think we'd be glad of Mancy's help a few days before that," said
Aunt Alice.
And so, subject to Mr. Fairfield's final sanction, Mancy was engaged. And now Patty's whole establishment, including Pudgy the cat, was made up.
CHAPTER VII
DIFFERING TASTES
A few days before the close of the old year, Patty sat at her desk in the library of Boxley Hall.
She was making lists of good things to be ordered for the feast on New Year's day; and, as it was her first unaided experience with such memoranda, she wore an air of great importance and a deeply puckered brow.
Mancy, with her arms comfortably akimbo, stood before her young mistress ready to suggest, but tactfully chary of advice.
They were not yet living in the new home, but all the furniture was in place, the furnace fire had been started, and the palms arranged in the little conservatory.