“That’s all attended to,” said Nan,—“the copying, I mean. You’ve been so busy doing other people’s work, that of course you haven’t had time to attend to your own, so I gave your poem to your father, and he had it typewritten for you, and here it is all ready. Now, while you dress, I’ll read it to you, and that will bring it back to your memory.”
“Nan, you are a dear,” cried Patty, jumping up and flying across the room to give her stepmother a hearty caress. “Whatever would I do without you? I’m all right now, and if you’ll just elocute that thing, while I array myself in purple and fine linen, I’m sure it will all come back to me.”
So Nan read Patty’s jolly little class poem line by line, and Patty repeated it after her as she proceeded with her toilette.
She was ready before the appointed time, and the carriage was at the door, but Nan would not let her go.
“No, my lady,” she said, “you don’t stir out of this house until the very last minute. If you get over there ahead of time, you’ll begin to make somebody a new costume, or build a throne for the fairy queen, or some foolish trick like that. Now you sit right straight down in that chair and read your poem over slowly, while I whip into my own clothes, and then we’ll go along together. Fred can’t come until a little later anyway. Sit still now, and don’t wriggle around and spoil that pretty frock.”
Patty obeyed like a docile child, and Nan flew away to don her own pretty gown for the occasion.
When she returned in a soft grey crêpe de chine, with a big grey hat and feathers, she was such a pretty picture that Patty involuntarily exclaimed in admiration.
“I’m glad you like it,” said Nan, “I want to look my best so as to do you credit, and in return I want you to do your best so as to do me credit.”
“I will,” said Patty, earnestly, “I truly will. You’ve been awfully good to me, Nan, and but for you I don’t know what I should have done.”
Away they went, and when they reached the schoolroom, and Patty went to join her classmates, while Nan took her place in the audience, she said as a parting injunction, “Now mind, Patty, this afternoon you’re to attend strictly to your own part in the programme. Don’t go around helping other people with their parts, because this isn’t the time for that. You’ll have all you can do to manage Patty Fairfield.”