"Is he married?" asked Harriet.
"N-no, I don"t think so. I believe he had a disappointment in his youth, that broke his heart."
"What fun!" cried Kid, reemerging. "Is it still broken?"
"I suppose so," said Patty.
"How old is he?"
"I don"t know, I"m sure. He must be _quite_ old by now." (Her tone suggested that he was tottering on the brink of the grave.) "It has been seven years since I"ve seen him, and he was through college then."
Kid dismissed the subject. Old men, even with broken hearts, contained no interest for her.
That afternoon, as the three girls were gathered in Patty"s room enjoying an indigestible four o"clock tea of milk and bread and b.u.t.ter (furnished by the school) and fruit cake and candy and olives and stuffed prunes, the expressman arrived with a belated consignment of Christmas gifts, among them a long narrow parcel addressed to Patty. She tore off the wrapping, to find a note and a white pasteboard box. She read the note aloud while the others looked over her shoulder. Patty always generously shared experiences with anyone who might be near.
"_My Dear Patty,--_
"Have you forgotten "Uncle Bobby" who used to stand between you and many well-deserved spankings? I trust that you have grown into a VERY GOOD GIRL now that you are old enough to go away to school!
"I am coming to see for myself on Thursday afternoon. In the meantime, please accept the accompanying Christmas remembrance, with the hope that you are having a happy holiday, in spite of having to spend it away from home.
"Your old playfellow, "ROBERT PENDLETON."
"What do you s"pose it is?" asked Patty, as she addressed herself to unknotting the gold cord on the box.
"I hope it"s either flowers or candy," Harriet returned. "Miss Sallie says it isn"t proper to--"
"Looks to me like American Beauty roses," suggested Kid McCoy.
Patty beamed.
"Isn"t it a lark to be getting flowers from a _man_? I feel awfully grown up!"
She lifted the cover, removed a ma.s.s of tissue paper, and revealed a blue-eyed, smiling doll.
The three girls stared for a bewildered moment, then Patty slid to the floor, and buried her head in her arms against the bed and laughed.
"It"s got real hair!" said Harriet, gently lifting the doll from its bed of tissue paper, and entering upon a detailed inspection. "Its clothes come off, and it opens and shuts its eyes."
"Whoop!" shouted Kid McCoy, as she s.n.a.t.c.hed a shoe-horn from the bureau and commenced an Indian war dance.
Patty checked her hysterics sufficiently to rescue her new treasure from the danger of being scalped. As she squeezed the doll in her arms, safe from harm"s way, it opened its lips and emitted a grateful, "_Ma-ma!_"
They laughed afresh. They laid on the floor and rolled in an ecstasy of mirth until they were weak and gasping. Could Uncle Bobby have witnessed the joy his gift brought to three marooned St. Ursulites, he would have indeed been gratified. They continued to laugh all that day and the following morning. By afternoon Patty had just recovered her self-control sufficiently to carry off with decent gravity Uncle Bobby"s promised visit.
As a usual thing, callers were discouraged at St. Ursula"s. They must come from away, accredited with letters from the parents, and then must pa.s.s an alarming a.s.semblage of chaperones. Miss Sallie remained in the drawing-room during the first half of the call (which could last an hour), but was then supposed to withdraw. But Miss Sallie was a social soul, and she frequently neglected to withdraw. The poor girl would sit silent in the corner, a smile upon her lips, mutiny in her heart, while Miss Sallie entertained the caller.
But rules were somewhat relaxed in the holidays. On the day of Uncle Bobby"s visit, by a fortuitous circ.u.mstance, Miss Sallie was five miles away, superintending a new incubator house at the school farm. The Dowager and Miss Wadsworth and Miss Jellings were scheduled for a reception in the village, and the other teachers were all away for the holidays. Patty was told to receive him herself, and to remember her manners, and let him do a little of the talking.
This left her beautifully free to carry out the outrageous scheme that she had concocted over night. Harriet and Kid lent their delighted a.s.sistance, and the three spent the morning planning for her entrance in character. They successfully looted the "Baby Ward" where the fifteen little girls of the school occupied fifteen little white cots set in fifteen alcoves. A white, stiffly starched sailor suit was discovered, with a flaring blue linen collar, and a kilted skirt, that was shockingly short. Kid McCoy gleefully unearthed a pair of blue and white socks that exactly matched the dress, but they proved very much too small.
"They wouldn"t look well anyway," said Patty, philosophically, "I"ve got an awful scratch on one knee."
Gymnasium slippers with spring heels reduced her five feet by an inch.
She spent the early afternoon persuading her hair to hang in a row of curls, with a spanking blue bow over her left ear. When she was finished, she made as sweet a little girl as one would ever find romping in the park on a sunny morning.
"What will you do if he kisses you?" inquired Kid McCoy.
"I"ll try not to laugh," said Patty.
She occupied the fifteen minutes of waiting in a dress rehearsal. By the time Maggie arrived with the tidings that the visitor was below, she had her part letter-perfect. Kid and Harriet followed as far as the first landing, where they remained dangling over the banisters, while Patty shouldered her doll and descended to the drawing-room.
She sidled bashfully into the door, dropped a courtesy, and extended a timid hand to the tall young gentleman who rose and advanced to meet her.
"How do you do, Uncle Wobert?" she lisped.
"Well, well! Is this little Patty?"
He took her by the chin and turned up her face for a closer inspection--Mr. Pendleton was, mercifully, somewhat near-sighted. She smiled back sweetly, with wide, innocent, baby eyes.
"You"re getting to be a great big girl!" he p.r.o.nounced with fatherly approval. "You reach almost to my shoulder."
She settled herself far back in a deep leather chair, and sat primly upright, her feet sticking straight out in front, while she clasped the doll in her arms.
"Sank you very much, Uncle Bobby, for my perfectly beautiful doll!"
Patty imprinted a kiss upon the smiling bisque lips.
Uncle Bobby watched with gratified approval. He liked this early manifestation of the motherly instinct.
"And what are you going to name her?" he inquired.
"I can"t make up my mind." She raised anxious eyes to his.
"How would Patty Junior do?"
She repudiated the suggestion; and they finally determined upon Alice, after "Alice in Wonderland." This point happily disposed of, they settled themselves for conversation. He told her about a Christmas pantomime he had seen in London, with little girls and boys for actors.
Patty listened, deeply interested.
"I"ll send you the fairy book that has the story of the play," he promised, "with colored pictures; and then you can read it for yourself.
You know how to read, of course?" he added.
"Oh, yes!" said Patty, reproachfully. "I"ve known how to read a _long_ time. I can read anyfing--if it has big print."
"Well! You are coming on!" said Uncle Bobby.
They fell to reminiscing, and the conversation turned to Billy-Boy.
"Do you remember the time he chewed up his rope and came to church?"