“Nonsense!” cried Elise. “Patty’s greatest trouble is to keep her suitors off! She tries to hold them at arm’s length, but they are so insistent that it is difficult.”
“I think you girls are all too young to have suitors,” commented Mrs. Allen, smiling at the pretty trio.
“Oh, Mrs. Allen,” said Patty; “suitors doesn’t mean men who want to marry you. I suppose it’s sort of slang, but nowadays, girls call all their young men suitors, even the merest casual acquaintances.”
“Oh, I see,” said Mrs. Allen. “I suppose as in my younger days we used to call them beaux.”
“Yes, just that,” said Patty. “Why, Mr. Hepworth used to be one of our favourite suitors, until he persuaded Christine to marry him; but we have lots of them left.”
“Is that big one coming to the wedding?” asked Mrs. Allen.
“She means Bill Farnsworth,” said Patty to the others. “She always calls him ‘that big one.’ I don’t know whether he’s coming or not. He said if he possibly could get here, he would.”
“He’ll come,” said Elise, wagging her head, sagely. “He’ll manage it somehow. Why, Mrs. Allen, he worships the ground Patty walks on!”
“So do all my suitors,” said Patty, complacently. “They’re awful ground worshippers, the whole lot of them! But so long as they don’t worship me, they may adore the ground as much as they like. Now, you people must excuse me, for I’m going to get into that flummery bridesmaid’s frock,—and I can tell you, though it looks so simple, it’s fearfully and wonderfully made.”
Patty ran away to her own room, but paused on the way to speak to Christine, who was already being dressed in her bridal robes.