“Thank you, dear Father, but I have toys enough. Well, then, tonight is the Country Club Ball. And I do hate that, for there are so many uninteresting people at it, and you have to dance with most of them. And tomorrow there’s a poky old luncheon at Miss Gardiner’s. I don’t want to go to that. I wish I could elope!”
“Why don’t you, Patty?” said Nan, sympathetically; “cut it all, and run up to Adele’s, or some nice, quiet place.”
“Adele’s a quiet place! Not much! Even gayer than Spring Beach. And, anyway, it isn’t eloping if you go alone. I want to elope with a Romeo, or something exciting like that. Well! for goodness gracious sakes’ alive! Will you kindly look who’s coming up the walk!”
They followed the direction of Patty’s dancing blue eyes and saw a big man, very big and very smiling, walking up the gravel path, with a long, swinging stride.
“Little Billee!” Patty cried, jumping up and holding out both hands. “Wherever did you descend from?”
“Didn’t descend; came up. Up from the South, at break of day,—Barnegat, to be exact. How do you do, Mrs. Fairfield? How are you, sir?”
Farnsworth’s kindly, breezy manner, condoned his lack of conventional formality, and with an easy grace, he disposed his big bulk in a deep and roomy wicker porch chair.
“And how’s the Giddy Butterfly?” he said, turning to Patty. “Still making two smiles grow where one was before? Still breaking hearts and binding them up again?”
“Yes,” and she dimpled at him. “And I have a brand-new one to break this afternoon. Isn’t that fine?”
“Fine for the fortunate owner of the heart, yes. Any man worthy of the name would rather have his heart broken by Patty Fairfield than—than—to die in a better land!”