Patty took them with a gracious air of satisfaction, and rewarded the footman with thanks in French and a smile in American.
"Now," she went on calmly, "I shall be pleased to have the assistance of you two ladies, as I fancy these young men are not any more accustomed to sewing than to pulling taffy."
But to her surprise Cecil declared himself an expert needleman, and proved it by stitching up a bean-bag, under Patty's direction, in most praiseworthy fashion.
Each of the girls made one, too, and when they were filled with the coffee beans, and sewed up, Patty was again overcome by merriment at the regal appearance of their satin brocaded bean-bags.
Then into the long hall they went, but alas! the girls could not bring themselves to toss bean-bags in an apartment so filled with fragile objects of value.
In despair Patty again consulted her friend the footman. As soon as he understood her dilemma, he assured her he would arrange all; and in less than fifteen minutes he came back to her, almost smiling, and invited the party to follow him.
They followed to the picture gallery, where the ingenious man had carefully placed a number of large, folding Japanese screens in front of the pictures to protect them from possible harm.
Patty was delighted at this contrivance, and then followed such a game of bean-bags as had probably never been seen before in all France.
The only drawback was that Henri could not take part in this sport, but as Patty said wisely, "One cannot have everything in France; and, at any rate, he can eat some of our American taffy, which must be cooled by this time."