Nan’s well-trained servants had the house open and ready for them, and Patty flew up the steps and into the great hall with a whoop of delight.
“Isn’t it great, Nan! Isn’t it fine! More fun than travelling abroad or touristing through Sunny It.! For, you see, this is our own home and we own it!”
“Patty, your enthusiasm will wear you out some day. Do take it more quietly.”
“Can’t do it! I’m of a nervous temperament and exuberant disposition, and I have to express my thinks!”
The big hall was in reality a living-room. It extended straight through the house, with wide doors at either end. It had alcoves with cushioned seats, a huge fireplace, deep-seated windows, and from one side a broad staircase curved upward, with a landing and balcony halfway.
The wicker furniture was well-chosen and picturesque, besides being very comfortable and inviting.
“Just as soon as I can get a few things flung around, it will be perfect,” announced Patty. “At present, it’s too everlastingly cleared-up-looking.”
She tossed on a table the magazines she had bought on the train, and flung her long veil over a chair back.
“There, you see!” she said. “Watch that veil flutter in the seabreeze,—our own seabreeze, coming in at our own front door, and then tell me if ‘The Pebbles’ is a success!”
“Yes; and, unless you shut that door, you’ll have a most successful cold in your head,” observed her father. “It’s May, to be sure, but it doesn’t seem to be very thoroughly May, as yet.”