“But you’re coming back next week. I’ll promise to be awake by then. But now I’m going to hibernate, like a bear! Good-night, everybody!” and Patty ran upstairs without further ceremony.
But as, in her pretty blue négligée, she sat before the mirror brushing her long hair, Mona, Daisy, and Adèle all came into her room, quite evidently with a determination to chat.
“You’re an old sleepy-head, Patty,” declared Adèle. “You may sleep as late as you like in the morning, but we want to have a little confab now, about lots of things.”
“Nicht, nein, non, no!” cried Patty, jumping up and brandishing her hair-brush. “I know perfectly well what your confabs mean,—an hour or more of chattering and giggling! Come in the morning,—I’m going to have my chocolate upstairs to-morrow,—and I’ll give you all the information you want. But as for to-night, skip, scoot, scamper, and vamoose, every dear, sweet, pretty little one of you!”
Laughingly, Patty pushed the three out of her room, and closing the door after them, turned its key, unheeding their protests, and returned to her hair-brushing.
“It’s no use, Patricia,” she said, talking to herself in the mirror, as she often did, “letting those girls keep you up till all hours! You need your beauty sleep, to preserve what small pretence to good looks you have left.”
Patty was not really vain of her pretty face, but she well knew that her delicate type of beauty could not stand continuous late hours without showing it, and Patty was not mistaken when she claimed for herself a good share of common sense.
But as she brushed away at the golden tangle of curls, she heard a light tap at her door, which sounded insistent, rather than mischievous.
“Who is it?” she asked, as she rose and went toward the door.
“It’s Daisy,” said a low voice. “Let me in, Patty, just for a minute.”