Patty was already deep in another parcel.
"From Daddy, with all the love in the world," she read. "Dear old Dad! What on earth do you s'pose it is? I hope Mother suggested something. He's a perfect idiot about choosing presents, unless—Oh!" she squealed. "Pink silk stockings and slippers to match; and look at those perfectly lovely buckles!"
She offered for Harriet's inspection a pink satin slipper adorned with the daintiest of silver buckles, and with heels dizzily suggestive of France.
"Isn't my father a lamb?" Patty gaily kissed her hand toward a dignified, judicial-looking portrait on the bureau. "Mother suggested the slippers, of course, but the buckles and French heels were his own idea. She likes me sensible, and he likes me frivolous."
She was deep in the absorbing business of holding the pink frock before the glass to make sure that the color was becoming, when she was suddenly arrested by the sound of a sob, and she turned to see Harriet throw herself across the bed and clutch the pillow in a storm of weeping. Patty stared with wide-open eyes; she herself did not indulge in such emotional demonstrations, and she could not imagine any possible cause. She moved the pink satin slippers out of reach of Harriet's thrashing feet, gathered up the fallen elephant and scattered chocolates, and sat down to wait until the cataclysm should pass.
"What's the matter?" she mildly inquired, when Harriet's sobs gave place to choking gasps.
"My father never sent me any s-silver b-buckles."
"He's way off in Mexico," said Patty, awkwardly groping for consolation.
"He never sends me anything! He doesn't even know me. He wouldn't recognize me if he met me on the street."
"Oh, yes, he would," Patty assured her with doubtful comfort. "You haven't changed a bit in four years."