"Yes, Miss Patty," said Pansy, "but there aren't very many left."
"Well, then, Mancy, I'll tell you what: you make us a nice pot of chocolate, and fix us some thin bread and butter, and cut up some of the fruit cake to put with those little fancy cakes; won't that do?"
"Yas'm, I spec' so; but it's a mighty slim layout, 'specially for dem hearty young chaps. But you go 'long, honey, I'll fix it somehow."
And, sure enough, she did fix it somehow; for when, a little later, Patty invited her young friends out into the dining-room, the thin bread and butter had doubled itself up into most attractive and satisfying chicken-sandwiches, and there was also a plate of delicious toasted crackers and cheese.
Mr. Fairfield added a box of candy which he had brought home from New York, and the unpretentious little feast proved most enjoyable to all concerned.
"I should think you would feel all the time as if you were acting a play yourself, Patty," said Elsie Morris, taking her seat at the prettily laid table.
"I do," said Patty as she took her own place at the head; "it's awfully hard to realise that I am monarch of all I survey."
"But you have someone to dispute your right," said her father.
"And I'm glad of it," said Patty. "Whatever should I do living here all alone just with my rights?"
"By her rights, she means her cousins," put in Frank.