“I certainly never did,” said Grandma, smiling in spite of the seriousness of the occasion. “You are not a New York girl, but you are not countrified enough to be a subject of ridicule. Weren’t any of the girls nice to you?”
“Only one, and she wasn’t anything to brag of. Her name is Clementine Morse, and she’s awfully pretty and sweet-looking, but I didn’t see much of her. She was pleasant, but she seemed to be so more from a sense of duty than because she really liked me.”
“I don’t understand it,” said Grandma; “I think you’re a very nice girl, and I don’t see why anyone should think otherwise.”
“Well, they do,” said Patty; “but never mind, I’m not going to think anything more about it until papa comes home and then I’m going to ask him not to make me go there any more.”
As Grandma Elliott was a wise old lady she refrained from further questions and dropped the subject entirely. She proposed to Patty that they should go out and do a little shopping, and get some fresh air and exercise.
This proved a most successful diversion, and soon Patty was her own merry, bright self again.
But when Mr. Fairfield came home at five o’clock Patty laid the case before him in emphatic and graphic language.
“They’re different kinds of horrid,” she said in conclusion, “but they’re all horrid. Only a few of them were really rude, but they all ignored me, and seemed to wish that I’d get off the earth.”
“How did you treat them?” asked her father, who was really puzzled at the turn affairs had taken.
“Why, I did the best I knew how. I waited for them to be nice to me, and then when they didn’t, I tried to be nice to them. But they wouldn’t let me. Of course, papa, you know I know enough not to be forward, or push myself in where I’m not wanted; but I just tried to get acquainted in a nice way, and they wouldn’t have it at all.”