"Being in town last Saturday on business, he decided to run out and call on Miss McKay, as he was such a friend of her brother's—and also for the sake of old times. He amused himself all the way out in the car by resurrecting his buried romance, and he kept getting more and more pensive with every mile. When he finally reached the door and handed his card to the maid, he abstractedly called for Miss Pond just as he used to do four years ago. He didn't realize at first what he had done. Then it came over him in a flash, but he couldn't catch Sadie. He knew, of course, that the other man had heard, and he sat there scared to death, trying to think of some plausible excuse, and momentarily expecting a strange Miss Pond to pop in and demand an explanation.
"Sure enough, the curtains parted, and a tall, beautiful, stately creature (I quote Miss McKay's brother) swept into the room, and, approaching the wrong man, asked him in haughty tones if he were Mr. Frederick K. Stanthrope. He very properly denied it, whereupon there was nothing for the right Mr. Stanthrope to do but stand up and acknowledge it like a man, which he did; but there he stuck. His imagination was numbed, paralyzed; so he turned it off on poor Sadie, and all the time he knew that the other man knew that he was lying. And that is all," Patty finished. "It's not much of a story, but such as it is, it's a blessing to have it concluded."
"Patty," called Priscilla, from the other end of the table, "have you been telling them that absurd story?"
"Why not?" asked Patty. "Having heard so many sequels, they naturally wanted to hear the last."
Priscilla laughed. "But yours doesn't happen to be the last. I know a still later one."
"Later than Patty's?" the table demanded.
"Yes, later than Patty's. It isn't really a sequel; it's just an appendix. I shouldn't tell you, only you'll find it out, so I might as well. Miss McKay has invited two men for the junior party, and both have accepted. As two men are hard to manage, she has (by request) asked me to take care of one of them—namely, Mr. Frederick K. Stanthrope."
Patty sighed. "I see a whole series of sequels stretching away into the future. It's worse than the Elsie Books!"