"You people," began Patty, after Nan had left them, "mustn't talk as you do about my going away, before my stepmother. You see, we're going because she wants to go, but it isn't polite to rub it in!"
"I know it," said Beatrice, "but I forgot it. But, I say, Patty, I think it's too bad for you to be trailed off there just to please her."
"Not at all, Bee. She has stayed here three months to please me, and turn about is fair play."
"It's Fairfield play, at any rate," put in Jack. "You're a trump,
Patty, to take it so sweetly. I wish you didn't have to go, though."
"So say we all of us," declared Lora, but Patty ordered them, rather earnestly, to drop the subject and not refer to it again.
"You must write me all about the Pageant, girls," she went on.
"Can't I write too, though I'm not a girl?" asked Jack.
"No!" cried Patty, holding up her hands in pretended horror. "I couldn't receive a letter from a young man!"
"Oh, try it," said Jack, laughing. "I'll help you. You've no idea how easy it is! Have you never had a letter from a man?"
"From papa," said Patty, putting the tip of her finger in her mouth, and speaking babyishly.