“When you invite me to those, I may go also,” said Grandma, gaily; “but next Saturday afternoon I consider myself engaged for the circus. You’ll have a box, I suppose.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Fairfield, “we’ll have anything that’ll add to your pleasure; not omitting pop-corn and pink lemonade, if they’re to be had.”
“Oh, papa!” cried Patty, “this kind of a circus doesn’t have those things. You’re thinking of a country circus. The circus in Madison Square Garden isn’t like that.”
“Well, at any rate,” said Mr. Hepworth, “I hope it has all the traditional features in the way of clowns, and freaks, and acrobats, and other trained animals.”
“Yes, they have all of those,” said Grandma, eagerly, “for I saw them on the posters.”
They all laughed at this, and declared it was more fun to take Grandma to the circus than to take a child.
Both Lorraine and Kenneth accepted the invitation with pleasure, and Kenneth volunteered to make Lorraine his especial charge, and if the fun of the circus flagged, to amuse her with some ready-made fun of his own.
Saturday was a beautiful, bright day, and Mr. Fairfield promised to come home to luncheon, in order that they might all start together, in ample time for the performance.
About eleven o’clock a card was brought up to Patty by the hall boy.
“Miss Rachel Daggett,” she read in dismayed tones. “Grandma! she has come to stay a few days! She said she would, you know, the last time we were in Vernondale, and now she’s here. Oh, I wish she had chosen any other day! She wouldn’t let me set the time, but said she would come whenever the mood struck her.”