"H'm," he frowned over this tangle of intrigue. "Is it entirely fair for the rest to help?"
"Oh, yes!" said Patty. "They have to do the analyzing, but their friends can collect and paste. Every time anybody goes for a walk, she comes back with her blouse stuffed full of specimens for either Conny or Keren. The nice girls are for Conny. Keren's an awful dig. She wears eye-glasses and thinks she knows everything."
"I'm for Miss Conny myself," he declared. "Is there any way in which I could help?"
Patty glanced about tentatively.
"You have quite a number of plants," she suggested, "that Conny hasn't got in her book."
"You shall take back as many as you can carry," he promised. "We'll pay a visit to the orchid house."
They left the garden behind, and turned toward the glass roofs of the conservatories. Patty was so entertained, that she had entirely forgotten the passage of time, until she came face to face with a clock in the gable of the carriage house; then she suddenly realized that St. Ursula's luncheon had been served three quarters of an hour before—and that she was in a starving condition.
"Oh, goodness gracious! I forgot all about luncheon!"
"Is it a very grave crime to forget about luncheon?"
"Well," said Patty, with a sigh, "I sort of miss it."