“Of course I am. Oh, Patty, doesn’t it seem long ago that you spent that summer with us? And to think I’ve scarcely seen you since! Not since Nan’s wedding, anyway.”
“No; and you only in Philadelphia! It’s ridiculous. But, I’ve tried to get you over here time and again.”
“I know it. But I went out West to Stanford, and I was there so long, I almost lost track of all my Eastern people. Your Best Beloved is Western, isn’t he? Oh, Patty, tell me all,—everything about him.”
“All in good time, Helen, honey. For now, I’ll just say that he’s the dearest and best man in the whole world, and that you’ll agree to that when you see him. Now, come up to your room, and fix yourself up. You look as if you’d been through a whirlwind!”
“I always look like that,” and Helen Barlow laughed.
She was Patty’s cousin, and had come to New York for a visit. She had often been invited and several times had planned to come, but something had prevented her, and as the Barlow family were of a most undependable sort in the matter of keeping engagements or appointments, it surprised nobody that Helen had not carried out her plans. Indeed the surprise was that she was really here at last, and Patty stared at her hard to reassure herself that her guest had positively appeared.
Helen Barlow was a pretty girl, about Patty’s own age. Her soft brown hair was curled round her ears, in the prevailing mode, but it showed various wisps out of place, and needed certain pats and adjustments before a mirror. Her hat, a brown velvet toque, was a little askew,—even more so than she meant it to be,—and the long fur stole, over her arm, dragged on the floor.
Without being positively unkempt, Helen was untidy, and Patty well remembered that as a child she had been far more so.
The two girls went up to the room prepared for Helen, and soon her outer garments went flying. The hat was tossed on the bed, upside down; the stole slipped to the floor as the long cloth coat was wrenched open and one button pulled off by an impatient twitch.
“Never mind,” Helen said, “that old button was loose, anyway. Oh, Patty, how trim and tidy you look!”