“I’ll see about it,” answered Mrs. Hartley. “Perhaps, if we make up a party, Miss Fairfield will go with us.”
“I’d love to,” said Patty. “I’ve never seen a real English garden party.”
“Oh, this isn’t a real English garden party in the true sense,” said Sinclair. “To see that, you must be in the country. But this is a public London garden party and typical of its sort. You’ll like it, I’m sure. Will you go with us, Grandy?”
At first it seemed incongruous to Patty to hear the dignified Mrs. Cromarty addressed by such a nickname, but as she came to know her better, the name seemed really appropriate. The lady was of the class known as grande dame, and her white hair and delicate, sharply-cut features betokened a high type of English aristocracy. Her voice was very sweet and gentle, and she smiled at her big grandson, as she replied:
“No, my boy; I lost my taste for garden parties some years ago. But it’s a fine setting for you young people, and I hope Emmeline will take you all.”
“Mother said she’d see about it,” said Mabel, “and that’s always the same as ‘yes.’ If it’s going to be ‘no,’ she says, ‘I’ll think it over.’”
“It’s a great thing to understand your mother-tongue so well,” said Patty, laughing; “now I shouldn’t have known those distinctions.”
“We have a wonderful talent for languages,” said Sinclair, gravely. “Indeed, we have a language of our own. Shall I teach it to you?”
“You might try,” said Patty, “but I’m not at all clever as a linguist.”
“You may not learn it easily, but it can be taught in one sentence. It consists in merely using the initial of the word instead of the word itself.”