“You must have worked awfully hard to get things ready for us, Dad.”
Patsy slipped an affectionately grateful hand into her father’s arm.
“I could have done better if I had known from the start that you were really coming,” he returned. “I had to hustle around considerably. At least you’re here now and your aunt can be depended upon to do the rest. I hope she will get along nicely with her darkie help. They’re usually as hard to manage as a lot of unruly children.”
“Oh, she will,” predicted Patsy. “She always makes everybody except Patsy do as she says. Patsy likes to have her own way, you know.”
“So I’ve understood,” smiled Mr. Carroll. “Patsy usually gets it, too, I’m sorry to say.”
“You’re not a bit sorry and you know it,” flatly contradicted Patsy. “You’d hate to have me for a daughter if I were a meek, quiet Patsy who never had an opinion of her own.”
“I can’t imagine such a thing,” laughed her father. “I’m so used to being bullied by a certain self-willed young person that I rather like it.”
“You’re a dear,” gaily approved Patsy. “I don’t ever really bully you, you know. I just tell you what you have to do and then you go and do it. That’s not bullying, is it?”
“Not in our family,” satirically assured Mr. Carroll.
Whereupon they both laughed.