Patty's Perversities

"Thanks!" she returned, turning the rings upon her white fingers. "Say on."

"It is about that Smithers woman."

"Who is she?"

"Nonsense! Don't bother to pretend you don't know, Flora. You can't expect me to be honest, unless you are."

"Well," Miss Sturtevant smiled, "let us assume that I do know who the Smithers woman is. An old friend of your father, if I remember correctly."

"Bother!" he said impatiently. "Why do you tease so to-day? Do you want me to relate all the details of her disreputable relations with my father?"

"Oh, no! Nothing disreputable," Flora exclaimed with a deprecatory gesture of her small hands. "But what about her now?"

"You've heard how madly fond of her old Mullen became in his last days?"

"Yes: it was as romantic as it was improper."

"Mullen put into her hands papers which related to my father's affairs, and I want them."

"It is strange how that woman held both your father and Mr. Mullen," Miss Sturtevant said reflectively. "I should like to see her."

She seemed to become more and more indifferent as the conversation proceeded; while, in reality, reasons of which Breck could know nothing, made her intensely interested.

"She is at Samoset," Frank said. "You may see her any day."

"And she has these papers?" Flora asked.

"No, she has not."

"Who has?"

"Will you help me get them?"

"If I can, of course I will."

"I'll make it worth your while," he said, taking out his tablets.

He leaned towards her, and wrote a name before her eyes, as if he feared to speak what some unseen listener might overhear. Then, in answer to her puzzled look, he added an explanatory word or two.

The afternoon sun was declining swiftly when the party prepared to leave the beautiful cove. Many of the elder people had gone, Mrs. Sanford among them, the worthy dame having first come to the top of the bank, and poured out a flood of directions to her daughter, to all of which, an impartial historian is compelled to add, Patty gave not the slightest heed.

A rope had been fastened to a tree standing near the head of the path leading up the embankment, and supplied the place of the broken rail. When Patty was ready, a discussion arose how she should be got up the steep. Putnam cut it short by taking her, blushing as a modest maiden should, in his arms, and climbing up with her, she assisting by clinging to the rope.

"You are something of a load," he said, puffing as they reached the top.

"I shall be as heavy as mother some day, I don't doubt," she replied demurely; "but it isn't grateful of you to speak of it, when I pulled you up by the rope."

"You are not the first lady who has pulled a man up by a rope," he replied, tucking her into the carriage with great tenderness; "but they generally do it by means of the hangman."

CHAPTER VI

CHIT-CHAT

Three carriages followed in succession the homeward road; the first contained Patty and Putnam; the second Clarence Toxteth and Miss Purdy; the third, Burleigh Blood and Flossy.

Young Blood found himself unexpectedly at his ease with his companion. The awe he felt for her as a stranger, and because of her quaint speech, had largely worn away. Still he regarded her rather doubtfully, as one looks at something dangerous to handle. Her tiny figure, her quick, nervous motions, reminded him constantly of a humming-bird, and he had a fearful if vague sense of the danger of crushing her by the mere force of his huge presence. The great honest fellow, almost a giant, could have taken her up with one hand, his gentlest movements seeming overpoweringly forcible when exerted in behalf of his petite companion; and of this he was unpleasantly conscious.

Burleigh had known Patty Sanford from childhood in the way that everybody in Montfield knew everybody else. They had been companions at school, where Burleigh was only one of a dozen who believed themselves ready to lay down their lives for the doctor's daughter, or – a far greater proof of devotion – to share with her their last apple, or handful of chestnuts. It is true that the social status of the Bloods, so far as such distinctions were marked in Montfield, was below that of the Sanfords; and Miss Mullen of Mullen House, the aristocrat of the village, wondered that Patty could associate with everybody as she did. But Patty, while secretly proud enough of her family, was democratic at least in the treatment of her admirers; and young Blood found as warm a welcome at the doctor's cottage as did Clarence Toxteth. With Patty, Burleigh was less shy than with any girl of his acquaintance, and yet was far from being at his ease, even in her presence. With her cousin, whom he had known only a few weeks, he was at first painfully diffident. Her manner so completely ignored this shyness, however, that it was gradually wearing away.

"I do hope Patty's ankle isn't hurt so that she can't take her part in the theatricals," Flossy said as they rode along.

"Dr. Sanford thought," he returned, "that is, he said, she'd be all right in a week or so, if she'd keep still."

"She never did keep still," answered Flossy. "But I'll do my best to make her now. Did you ever play in amateur theatricals?"

"I? Oh, no! of course not."

"There's no of course about it; only of course you'll play now. This bashful man, you know, is just your part."

"This bashful man?" he repeated doubtfully.

"Oh, yes! In this play, you know. Patty and I both say you'll do it capitally."

In despite of her assurance that he knew, Burleigh was painfully conscious that he did not; and, indeed, her way of designating every thing as "this, you know," or "that other, you know," was sufficiently confusing.

"I have had such fun in theatricals!" Flossy ran on, not noticing his puzzled expression. "We played 'Trying It On,' one Christmas, and I was Mr. Tittlebat. I was so nervous, that I repeated stage-directions and all. And such a time as I had to get a man's suit small enough!"

Her companion involuntarily glanced from his own figure to the tiny maiden by his side. She understood the look, and burst into a gay laugh.

"Oh, dear! I should have been lost in your clothes," she cried. He blushed as red as the big clover she had pinned in his buttonhole, and modestly cast down his eyes.

"In that other, you know," she chattered on, "they wanted me to take the part of Jane. That was after I had been Mr. Tittlebat, and I felt insulted."

"Insulted? Why, because it wasn't a man's part?"

"Oh, dear, no! I don't like to act men's parts. But I hunted and hunted and hunted, and it was forever before I could find it; and then this was all it was. [Enter Jane.] Mrs. Brown. – Jane, bring my bonnet. [Exit Jane.] [Enter Jane.] Mrs. Brown. – That will do, Jane. [Exit Jane.] Of course I wouldn't take it."

"What was there insulting in that?" asked Burleigh, to whom the brevity of the part would have been a strong recommendation.

"Why, in the first place I couldn't find it; and then, when I did, it was only 'Exit Jane.' You wouldn't want to exit all the time, would you? I wouldn't 'exit Jane' for 'em."

"Well," he answered, laughing at her emphatic speech; "it is just as anybody feels: but I think I'd rather 'exit' than any thing else."

"Did you ever see 'Ruy Blas'?" Flossy asked. "You ought to see that. All the ladies cry; or at least they all take out their handkerchiefs: this man is so cruel, you know. And it's lovely where she says, – she's the queen, you know, – 'Ruy Blas, I pity, I forgive, and I love you!' Oh, it's too lovely for any thing."

"Is that the place where the ladies all take out their handkerchiefs?"

"No, that isn't the time I cry."