It was on the afternoon of New Year’s Day that Mr. Hepworth came to call on Patty. She was at home again, having returned from her visit to Elise a few days after Christmas.
“You know I am old-fashioned,” he said, as he greeted the Fairfield family, and joined their circle round the library fire. “But I don’t suppose you thought I was quite so old-fashioned as to make calls on New Year’s Day. However, I’m not quite doing that, as this is the only call I shall make to-day.”
“We’re glad to see you any day in the year,” said Nan, cordially, and Patty added:
“Indeed we are. I’ve been wondering why you didn’t come round.”
“Busy,” said Mr. Hepworth, smiling at her. “An artist’s life is not a leisure one.”
“Is anybody’s now-a-days?” asked Mr. Fairfield. “The tendency of the age is to rush and hurry all the time. What a contrast to a hundred years ago!”
“And a good contrast, too,” declared Nan. “If the world still jogged along at a hundred years ago rate, we would have no motor-cars, no aëroplanes, no——”
“No North Pole,” suggested her husband. “True enough, Nan, to accomplish things we must be busy.”
“I want to get busy,” said Patty. “No, I don’t mean that for slang,”—as her father looked at her reprovingly,—“but I want to do something that is really worth while.”
“The usual ambition of extreme youth,” said Mr. Hepworth, looking at her kindly, if quizzically. “Do you want to reform the world, and in what way?”