“Yes, we often do that,” returned Bob, greatly gratified at the rapid progress of the new pupil. “You must be fond of puzzles, to catch this up so quickly.”
“I am,” said Patty. “I’ve guessed puzzles ever since I was a little girl. I always solve all I can find in the papers, and sometimes I take prizes for them.”
“We do that too,” said Mabel; “and sometimes we make puzzles and send them to the papers and they print them. Let’s make some for each other this evening.”
After dinner the young people gathered round the table in the pleasant library, and were soon busy with paper and pencils. Patty found the Hartleys a match for her in quickness and ingenuity, but she was able to guess as great a proportion of their puzzles as they of hers.
After amusing themselves with square words and double acrostics, they drifted to conundrums, and Bob asked:
“Which letter of the Dutch alphabet spells an English lady of rank?”
“That’s not fair,” objected Patty, “because I don’t know the Dutch alphabet.”
“That doesn’t matter,” said Mabel, “you can guess it just as well without.”
“Indeed I can’t, and besides I don’t know the names of all the English ladies of rank.”
“That doesn’t matter either,” said Sinclair, smiling; “it spells a title, not a name; and one you know very well.”