Patty's Success Part 11

"I don't care, I must just speak to him. I haven't seen him since I came home. Whoever belongs to my next dance can wait a few minutes."

"All right; come on, then." Roger led her across the room, and with a smiling face, and in tones of glad welcome, she said:

"Oh, Mr. Hepworth, how do you do?"

"Patty!" he exclaimed, taking her hands in his. "I'm so glad to see you again."

There was a thrill in his voice that startled her, but she only said, "And so am I glad to see you. Why haven't you been to call on me?"

"I've just returned from a Southern trip. Only reached New York to-night,--and here I am."

"Here I am, too, but I can't talk to you now. My programme is full, and I make it a point always to keep my engagements."

"Not one dance left?" said Mr. Hepworth, looking over the scribbled card.

"Not one! I'm so sorry,--but, of course, I didn't know you were coming."

"Of course not. Run along now, and enjoy yourself, and I'll call on you, if I may, some time when you are at home."

"Yes, do," said Patty, realising that Mr. Hepworth was the same kind, thoughtful friend he had always been.

"I wonder why I'm so glad to see him," she thought to herself, as she walked away with her new partner; "but I am, all the same."

CHAPTER VI

A FAIR PROPOSITION

It was on the afternoon of New Year's Day that Mr. Hepworth came to call on Patty. She was at home again, having returned from her visit to Elise a few days after Christmas.

"You know I am old-fas.h.i.+oned," he said, as he greeted the Fairfield family, and joined their circle round the library fire. "But I don't suppose you thought I was quite so old-fas.h.i.+oned as to make calls on New Year's Day. However, I'm not quite doing that, as this is the only call I shall make to-day."

"We're glad to see you any day in the year," said Nan, cordially, and Patty added:

"Indeed we are. I've been wondering why you didn't come round."

"Busy," said Mr. Hepworth, smiling at her. "An artist's life is not a leisure one."

"Is anybody's now-a-days?" asked Mr. Fairfield. "The tendency of the age is to rush and hurry all the time. What a contrast to a hundred years ago!"

"And a good contrast, too," declared Nan. "If the world still jogged along at a hundred years ago rate, we would have no motor-cars, no aeroplanes, no----"

"No North Pole," suggested her husband. "True enough, Nan, to accomplish things we must be busy."

"I want to get busy," said Patty. "No, I don't mean that for slang,"--as her father looked at her reprovingly,--"but I want to do something that is really worth while."

"The usual ambition of extreme youth," said Mr. Hepworth, looking at her kindly, if quizzically. "Do you want to reform the world, and in what way?"

"Not exactly reform it," said Patty, smiling back at him; "reform has such a serious sound. But I do want to make it brighter and better."

"That's a good phrase, too," observed Mr. Hepworth, still teasingly.

"But, Patty, you do make the world brighter and better, just by being in it."

"That's too easy; and, anyway, I expect to remain in it for some several years yet; and I want to do something beside just _be_."

"Ah, well, you can doubtless find some outlet for your enthusiasms."

"What she really wants," said her father, "is to be an operatic star."

"And sing into phonographs," added Nan, mischievously.

"Yes," smiled Patty, "and have my picture in the backs of magazines!"

"That's right," said Mr. Hepworth, "aim high, while you're about it."

"I can aim high enough," returned Patty, "but I'm not sure I can sing high enough."

"Oh, you only need to come high enough, to be an operatic star," said Mr.

Hepworth, who was in merry mood to-day.

"But, seriously," said Patty, who was in earnest mood, "I do want to do good. I don't mean in a public way, but in a charity way."

"Oh, soup-kitchens and bread-lines?"

"No; not exactly. I mean to help people who have no sweetness and light in their lives."

"Oh, Patty," groaned Nan, "if you're on that tack, you're hopeless. What have you been reading? 'The Young Maiden's Own Ruskin,' or 'Look Up and Not Down'?"

"And lend a ten," supplemented Mr. Fairfield.

"You needn't laugh," began Patty, pouting a little. Then she laughed herself, and went on: "Yes, you may laugh if you want to,--I know I sound ridiculous. But I tell you, people, I'm going to make good!"

"You may make good," said her father, "but you'll never be good until you stop using slang. How often, my daughter, have I told you----"

"Oh, cut it out, daddy," said Patty, dimpling with laughter, for she knew her occasional slang phrases amused her father, even though they annoyed him. "If you'll help me 'do n.o.ble things, not dream them all day long,'

I'll promise to talk only in purest English undefiled."

"Goodness, Patty!" said Nan, "you're a walking cyclopaedia of poetical quotations to-day."

"And you're a running commentary on them," returned Patty, promptly, which remark sent Mr. Hepworth off in peals of laughter.

"Oh, Patty!" he exclaimed, "I'm afraid you're going to grow up clever!

That would be fatal to your ambition! Be good, sweet child, and let who will be clever. n.o.body can be both."

"I can," declared Patty; "I'll show you Missouri people yet!"