"Martha!" exclaimed Patty in surprise, "oh, no, Aunt Isabel, I was named for my great-grandmother. My name is Patricia."
"Oh, how lovely," cried Aunt Isabel, kissing her niece in the exuberance of her delight. "We will all call you Patricia. It is a beautiful name and suits you extremely well. You must stand very straight, and acquire dignified manners in order to live up to it."
This made merry Patty laugh, but she offered no objection to her aunt's decision, and promised to sign her name Patricia whenever she wrote it, and to make no further use of the despised nickname while staying at Villa Rosa. Ethelyn was pleased too, at the change.
"Oh," she said, "now your name is as pretty as mine and Florelle's, and we have the prettiest names in Elmbridge. Here comes Reginald, you haven't seen him yet."
Reginald St. Clair, a lad of thirteen, advanced without a trace of shyness and greeted his new cousin.
"So it is Patricia," he said, as he took her hand; "I heard them rechristening you. How do you do, Cousin Patricia?"
"Very well, I thank you," she replied, smiling, "and though I meet you the last of my new cousins, you are not the least," and she glanced up at him, for Reginald was a tall boy for his age, taller than either Ethelyn or Patty.
"Not the least in any way, as you'll soon find out if you stay with us,
Cousin Patricia."
Patty almost laughed at this boastful assumption of importance, but seeing that the boy was in earnest, she humored him by saying:
"As the only son, I suppose you are the flower of the family."