"You go with me, Patty, in one of the traps, won"t you?" said Kenneth, who sat on the veranda railing at her other side.
Patty"s face took on a comical smile of amus.e.m.e.nt at these two requests, but she answered both at once by merrily saying:
"Then it all adjusts itself. Mr. and Mrs. Allen and Mr. and Mrs. Elliott shall have the most comfortable carriage, and Marian and Mr. Hepworth and Ken and I will go in the other."
That seemed to be the, best possible arrangement, and about three o"clock the procession started.
Patty and Marian took the back seat of the open carriage, Mr. Hepworth and Kenneth Harper sat facing them.
As Marian had already become very much interested in her new fad of authorship, and as under Miss Fischer"s tuition she was rapidly developing into a real little blue-stocking, it is not strange that the conversation turned in that direction.
"I looked in all the bookshops in the city for your latest works, Miss Marian," said Mr. Hepworth, "but they must have been all sold out, for I couldn"t find any."
"Too bad," said Marian. "I"m afraid you"ll have to wait until a new edition is printed."
"You"re not to tease Marian," said Patty reprovingly. "She"s been as patient as an angel under a perfect storm of chaff, and I"m not going to allow any more of it."
"I don"t mind," said Marian. "I think, if one is really in earnest, one oughtn"t to be annoyed by good-natured fun."
"Quite right," said Kenneth; "and ambition, if it"s worth anything, ought to rise above comment of any sort."
"It ought to be strengthened by comment of any sort," said Mr. Hepworth.
"Of any sort?" asked Marian thoughtfully.
"Yes, for comment always implies recognition, and that in itself means progress."
"Have you an ambition, Mr. Hepworth?" said Patty suddenly. "But you have already achieved yours. You are a successful artist."
"A man may have more than one ambition," said Mr. Hepworth slowly, "and I have _not_ achieved my dearest one."
"I suppose you want to paint even better than you do," said Patty.
"Yes," said the artist, smiling a little, "I hope I shall always want to paint better than I do. What"s your ambition, Harper?"
"To build bridges," said Kenneth. "I"m going to be a civil engineer, but my ambition is to be a bridge-builder. And I"ll get there yet," he added, with a determined nod of his head.
"I think you will," said Mr. Hepworth, "and I"m sure I hope so."
Then the talk turned to lighter themes than ambition, and merry laughter and jest filled up the miles to Allaire.
All were delighted with the place. Aside from the picturesque ruined buildings and the eerie mysterious-looking old mill, there was a novel interest in the strange silent air of desertion that seemed to invest the place with an almost palpable loneliness.
"I don"t like it," said Patty. "Come on, let"s go home."
But to Marian"s more romantic imagination it all seemed most attractive, so different was her temperament from that of her sunshiny, merry-hearted cousin.
At last they did go home, and Patty chattered gaily all the way in order, as she said, to drive away the musty recollections of that forlorn old place.
"How did you like it, Nan?" she asked, when they were all back at the hotel.
"I thought it beautiful," said Nan, smiling.
That evening there was a small informal dance in the parlours. Not a large hop, like the one given the week before, but Patty declared the small affair was just as much fun as the other.
"I always have all the fun I can possibly hold, anyway," she said; "and what more can anybody have?"
Toward the close of the evening Mr. Fairfield came up to Patty, who was sitting, with a crowd of merry young people, in a cosey corner of the veranda.
"Patty," he said, "don"t you want to come for a little stroll on the board walk?"
"Yes, of course I do," said Patty, wondering a little, but always ready to go with her father. "Is Nan going?"
"No, I just want you," said Mr. Fairfield.
"All right," said Patty, "I"m glad to go."
They joined the crowd of promenaders on the board walk, and as they pa.s.sed Patty"s favourite bit of beach she said:
"That"s where we girls sit and talk about our ambitions."
"Yes, so I"ve heard," said Mr. Fairfield. "And what are your ambitions, baby?"
"Oh, mine aren"t half so grand and gorgeous as the other girls". They want to do great things, like singing in grand opera and writing immortal books and things like that."
"And your modest ambition is to be a good housekeeper, isn"t it?"
"Well, yes, papa; but not only that. I was thinking about it afterward by myself, and I think that the housekeeping is the practical part of it--and that"s a good big part too--but what I really want to be is a lovely, good, _womanly_ woman, like Aunt Alice, you know. I don"t believe she ever wanted to write books or paint pictures."
"No she never did," said Mr. Fairfield, "and I quite agree with you that her ambitions are just as high and n.o.ble as those others you mentioned."
"Well, I"m glad you think so, papa, for I was afraid I might seem to you very small and petty to have all my ambitions bounded by the four walls of my own home."
"No, Patty, girl, I think those are far better than unbounded ambitions, far more easily realised, and will bring you greater and better happiness. But don"t you see, my child, that the very fact of your having a talent--which you certainly have--for housekeeping and home-making, implies that some day, in the far future, I hope, you will go away from me and make a home of your own?"
"Very likely I shall, papa; but that"s so far in the future that it"s not worth while bothering about it now."
"But I"m going to bother about it now to a certain extent. Do you realise that when this does come to pa.s.s, be it ever so far hence, that you"re going to leave your poor old father all alone, and that, too, after I have so carefully brought you up for the express purpose of making a home for me?"
"Well, what are you going to do about it?" said Patty, who was by no means taking her father"s remarks seriously.
"Do? Why, I"m going to do just this. I"m going to get somebody else to keep my house for me, and I"m going to get her now, so that I"ll have her ready against the time you leave me."
Patty turned, and by the light of an electric lamp which they were pa.s.sing, saw the smile on her father"s face, and with a sudden intuition she exclaimed:
"Nan!"
"Yes," replied her father, "Nan. How do you like it?"