“Looks exactly like Mona,” said Patty, as they drew near. “It’s just a mass of heavy embroidery!”
A footman answered their ring, and, taking their cards on his silver tray, ushered them into a drawing-room, and departed.
There was a rather long interval before Miss Galbraith appeared, and Patty fidgeted. The golden hours of her afternoon were slipping away, and she was impatient to go out with Camilla.
But presently Mona Galbraith came downstairs, and greeted them effusively. As she had been when they saw her before, she was overdressed and over-jewelled. She wore a house dress of blue satin, but so befrilled and bedecked with jabots of lace that it was not only unbeautiful, but no way did it resemble the accepted fashion of the day. An expensive and complicated necklace of turquoises surmounted the blue satin, and large-headed pins of the same blue stone adorned the piled-up masses of hair.
Patty’s secret impulse was one of regret that a fairly pretty girl could make such a dowdy of herself, and she resolved, if ever they became sufficiently well acquainted, she would try to tone down Miss Galbraith’s frantic wardrobe.
“I’m so glad to see you,” their hostess said, “and, if you hadn’t come to-day, I was going straight over to your house to tell you what I thought of you! Oh, you naughty people, to keep me waiting so long! Why didn’t you come sooner?”
“Oh there’s been much to do,” said Nan, “fitting ourselves into our new home; and, too, I think we’re fairly prompt returning your call.”
“Oh, we mustn’t make calls and return calls; that’s too formal. We’re neighbours, you know, and we must just run in and out without ceremony. Don’t you think so, Miss Fairfield? Or, mayn’t I call you Patty? Please let me.”
Patty was good-natured and kind-hearted, but she began to think that Miss Galbraith’s unwelcomed familiarity must be checked.
“Isn’t it a little soon for first names, Miss Galbraith?” she asked, with a merry smile that took the rudeness from her question. “I like to win my friendships by degrees, and not jump into them suddenly.”