“Oh, Patty, you silly! Now, listen. Look at these plates, and pick out the prettiest hat so I may get it for the garden-party.”
Lady Kitty spread out the sheets of millinery designs, and still absorbed in her reading, Patty lifted her hand and, without looking, pointed a finger at random till it rested on one of the pictured hats.
“That one! Why, Patty, you’re crazy! I couldn’t wear that pudgy little turban,—I want a big sun-hat. Would you have a straw or lace?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Patty, turning a leaf and devouring the next page of her book.
“Angel child! You think you’re teasing me, don’t you? But not so! I love to see you so bent on literary pursuits! Indeed, I don’t think one book at a time is enough for a great brain like yours,—you should have two at once. You go on with yours, and I’ll read another to you.”
Picking up a book from a rustic couch near by, Lady Kitty began to read aloud. Her reading was more dramatic than the text warranted, and besides much elocutionary effect, she gesticulated vigorously, and finally rose, and standing straight in front of Patty, kept on reading and declaiming in ludicrous style.
The two were under a large marquee, on the lawn of Markleham Grange, the country home of Lady Hamilton, and her father, Sir Otho. Patty was comfortably tucked up among the cushions of a lengthy wicker chair, and had elected to spend the morning reading a new story-book of the very kind she liked best. So, partly because she didn’t want to be disturbed, but more for the sake of mischievously teasing her friend, Patty pretended to be oblivious to the hat subject.
But she could not long keep a straight face while Kitty waved her arms and trilled her voice in ridiculous fashion, as she continued to read aloud from the book. Then she would drop into a monotonous drawl, then gallop ahead without emphasis or inflection, and sometimes she would chant the words in dramatic recitative.
Of course, while this went on, Patty couldn’t read her own book, so finding herself beaten at her own game of teasing, she closed the volume, and said quietly:
“I wish you’d let me advise you about that new hat you’re thinking of buying. You always selects such frights.” As Lady Hamilton’s hats were renowned for their beauty and variety, this speech was taken at its worth, and in a moment the two friends were earnestly discussing the respective merits of chiffon, lace, and straw, as protection against the rays of a garden-party sun.