“Go and look for a picture book to keep you quiet.”
“Don’t be a silly kid, Paddy,” persuasively. “What’s the matter? I’ve a strong right arm you can command as you wish. Do you want someone hit?”
“No.”
“Well, let, me help anyway. I’ll wrap up the bottles for you.”
She demurred, but he finally ensconced himself on a high stool beside her and presently talked her into a better humour, afterward going home with her, which was really rather kind of him after the manner of his reception.
Three days later, Paddy received a most affectionate letter from Doreen Blake, begging her to come to tea, as she was quite alone.
“Mother and Kathleen are slaying in Eastbourne,” she wrote, “as Kathleen has been ill, and I had to remain in London because I had accepted so many invitations. Miss Wells is here to look after the house, but you and I can have a long, cosy chat all to ourselves. If you don’t come I shall be dreadfully disappointed and hurt. I want to hear all about the dispensing and everything.”
As Doreen had always been Paddy’s special chum, there was nothing unusual in Eileen being left out of the invitation, but Paddy tried to make it an excuse not to go. Her mother would not hear of it, however.
“I want you to go, dear,” she said, “because I like Mrs Blake and Doreen and Kathleen very much, and if they are going to remain in town for the season it will be nice for you to go and see them sometimes while Eileen and I are away.”
It had been arranged that they two should go to Omeath and stay at the Parsonage for three months, leaving Paddy at the doctor’s, and later on Paddy was to join them for her summer holiday, and Mrs Adair and Eileen to come back. This arrangement had been made owing to Eileen’s ill-health and the doctor’s advice that they should not remain in London all the summer, and as there was barely room for three visitors together at the Parsonage, they decided to go in detachments.