"May I come in?" said Marian, tapping at the open door. "Mother mine, are you going to monopolize our Patty? I haven't half seen her yet."
"You can see me," said Patty, smiling at her cousin, "but you can't hear me, for I am speechless with delight at this beautiful room, and that fairy-land place outside. And now I'm going to put my mother's picture on the desk and then it will be just perfect."
Patty took the portrait from her traveling-bag, and Aunt Alice looked at it tenderly. Though she had known her brother's young wife but a short time, she had greatly loved and admired her.
"You are like your mother, Patty," she said.
"So every one tells me, Aunt Alice. But I want to be a Fairfield too. Don't you think I am like papa?"
"Not very much in appearance. Perhaps you are like him in disposition. I'll wait until I know you better before I judge. Brother Fred was the stubbornest boy I ever saw. But when I told him so, he said it was only firmness of character."
"I think that's what it is with papa," said Patty, loyally, "but I've often heard him say that I used to be very stubborn when I was little."
"It's a Fairfield trait," said Aunt Alice, smiling, and as Patty looked at the sweet-faced lady she thought she seemed as if perhaps she could be very firm if occasion required.
"Marian," said Patty, "Aunt Alice says you helped arrange this lovely room for me, and I want to thank you and tell you how much I admire it."
"Oh, I didn't do much," said Marian. "I only selected the books and stocked the writing-desk and sewing-table, and made the sofa-pillows and did a few little things like that. Mamma did most of it herself. And grandma knitted the afghan. Isn't it pretty? We were all glad to get ready for your coming. We've looked forward to it ever since you came North."