So indoors they went, warm and glowing from their vigorous exercise, and their appetites sharpened by their rough battle with the weather.
Every day there seemed to be something new to do.
"I've been told," said Patty, "that life on an ocean steamer is monotonous, but I can't find any monotony. We've done something different every day, haven't we, Elise?"
"Yes; and next will be the concert, and that will be best of all. What are you going to sing, Patty?"
"I don't know. I don't want to sing at all, but your mother said I'd better sing once, because they all insist on it so, and I do like to be accommodating."
"I should think you did, Patty; you're never anything but accommodating."
"Oh, pooh! It's no trouble to me to sing. I'd just as lief do it as not; only it seems foolish for me to sing when there are so many older people with better voices to do it."
"Well, sing some simple little ballad, and I don't believe but what the people will like it just as much as the arias and things sung by the more pretentious singers."
So Patty followed Elise's advice, and when the night of the concert came her name was on the programme for one song.
And, as Elise had thought, it pleased the audience quite as well as some of the more elaborate efforts.