"Bruce Hayden, when did these come?" she asked, sorting the letters rapidly into little piles on the table at his elbow.
Bruce regarded the envelopes with undisguised astonishment, and then he broke into a guilty grin.
"Oh, thunder, I must have forgotten them!" he cried. "How in creation did you unearth them?"
Elinor explained, while Patricia eagerly seized on one addressed to her in Bruce's care and began to tear it open.
"It's from Madame Milano!" she cried excitedly. "Oh, Elinor, she's inviting me to her afternoon reception today, and it's hours and hours too late."
Bruce looked crestfallen. "But is Milano in town?" he argued. "She isn't singing till Tuesday night, you know——"
Patricia thrust the sheet before him. "See for yourself," she said. "It says the seventeenth, doesn't it? Look, Elinor, what a big sprawling hand she writes."
Bruce shook his head dolefully over the clearly written date. "It's today, all right," he admitted ruefully. "You've lost a jolly fine chance of seeing opera folk at home, thanks to my block-headedness."
Judith joined the group, and when she heard of Patricia's misfortune she put a consoling arm about her sister. "Never mind, Miss Pat dear," she said. "Perhaps when Madame Milano knows how bad you feel about missing her reception she'll do something that's a lot nicer for you."
Bruce chuckled and his face cleared. "Wait a minute," he said hastily, and disappeared into the other room.