"Here's your new friend," and Patty lifted Fleurette out of her pillows and presented her to Chick.
"What a beauty!" he cried, as he saw the golden curls and the big blue eyes. "And so intelligent!"
"Of course! Did you think she'd look vacant?"
"They often do," said Chick, sagely. "Why, my cousin's baby looks positively idiotic at times,—but this mite,—she knows it all!"
And Fleurette did look wise. Being in benign mood, she smiled at the big man who held her so gently, and put out a tentative fist toward his face.
"Born flirt," he declared, "just like her mother! Well, Patty, she's a wonder-child,—oh, I know 'em!—and I hereby constitute myself her godfather, without waiting to be asked."
"Good! We accept the honour. Make a bow, Fleurette."
"No, the honour is mine. She doesn't quite take it all in, yet,—but in days to come, she may feel real need of a godfather and I'll be there!"
"What do godfathers do? I never had any."
"I'm not quite sure, myself. I'm going to get a field-book,—or First
Lessons in Godfathering, or something like that. But, anyway, I'm hers!
Oh, Patty, she's going to grow up a beauty! Did you ever see such eyes!"
Patty laughed at Chick's enthusiasm, which was too patently genuine to be mere polite flattery, and entirely agreed in his opinion as to the good looks of the small Fleurette.
"What did you bring her?" she asked, and Chick drew from his pocket a set of small gold pins.
"For her bibs and tuckers," he explained. "At least that's what they told me at the shop. I don't know much about such things."
"They're just right," Patty said, "and they're her very first present,—outside the family. Thank you a thousand times,—you're very thoughtful, Chick."
"I hoped you'd like 'em," and the big, warm-hearted chap smiled with gratification. "Dress her up in them to-morrow, will you?"
And Patty promised she would.
CHAPTER III
BETTY GALE
Seated at the head of her own dinner table that evening, Patty felt decidedly in her element. Always of a hospitable nature, always efficient in household matters, she played her rôle of hostess with a sweet simplicity and a winning grace that charmed all her guests.
Farnsworth, opposite her at the big, round table, was a quiet, dignified and well-mannered host. He had not Patty's native ability to entertain, but he was honestly anxious that his guests should be pleased and he did all in his power to help along. Patty had coached him on many minor points, for Little Billee had been brought up in simple surroundings and unaccustomed to what he at first called Patty's frills and fal-lals.
But she had convinced him that dainty laces and shining silver were to be used for his daily fare and not merely as "company fixings," and being adaptable, the good-natured man obediently fell in with her wishes.
And now he was as deft and handy with his table appointments as Patty herself, and quite free from self-consciousness or awkwardness.
"You've made me all over, Patty," he would sometimes say; "now, I really like these dinky doo-daddles better than the 'old oaken bucket' effects on which I was brought up!"
And then Patty would beg him to tell her more about his early days and his wild Western life in the years before she knew him.
It was her great regret that Bill had no parents, nor indeed any near relatives. An only child, and early orphaned, he had lived a few years with a cousin and then had shifted for himself. A self-made man,—as they are styled,—he had developed fine business ability, and had also managed to acquire a familiarity with the best in literature. Patty was continually astonished by his ready references and his quotations from the works of the best authors.
Indeed, the room he took the deepest interest in furnishing in their new home was the library.
For the purpose he selected the largest room in the house. It had been designed as a drawing-room or ballroom; but Farnsworth said that its location and outlook made it an ideal library. He had an enormous window cut, that filled almost the whole of one side of the room, and which looked out upon a beautiful view, especially at sunset.
Then the furnishings were chosen for comfort and ease as well as preserving the dignified effect that should belong to a library. The book cases were filled with the books already owned by the two and new ones were chosen and bought by degrees as they were desired or needed.
The reference portion was complete and the cases devoted to poetry and essays well filled. Fiction, too, of the lasting kind, and delightful books of travel, biography and humour.
There were reading chairs, arranged near windows and with handy tables; there were desks, perfectly appointed; racks of new books and magazines; portfolios of pictures, and cosy window seats and tête-à-têtes.
There were a few fine pictures, and many little intimate sketches by worth-while pencils or brushes. And there were treasured books, valuable intrinsically or because of their inscriptions, that Farnsworth had collected here and there.
Small wonder, then, that the library was the favourite room in the house and that after dinner Patty proposed they go there for their coffee.
"Some room!" ejaculated Chick Channing, as they sauntered in and stood about, gazing at the wealth of books.
"Glorious!" agreed Mona, who had a mere pretence of a library in her own home. "I didn't know you were so literary, Patty."
"Oh, I'm not. It's Little Billee's gigantic intellect that planned this room, and he's the power that keeps it going. Every week he sends up a cartload of new books—"
"Oh, come, now, Patty,—I haven't bought a book for a fortnight!" laughed
Farnsworth. "But I've just heard of a fine old edition of Ike Walton that
I can get at—"
"There, there, my son, don't get started on your hobby," implored Channing. "We're ignoramuses, Mona and I, and we want to talk about less highbrow subjects."
"Count me on your side," said a smiling girl, whose big gray eyes took on a look of awe at the turn the conversation had taken. "I don't know if Ike Walton is a book or a steamboat!"
The speaker was Beatrice Gale, a neighbour of the Farnsworths. She was pretty and saucy looking,—a graceful sprite, with a dimpled chin, and soft brown hair, worn in moppy bunches over her ears. She was called Betty by her friends, and Patty and Bill had already acquired that privilege.
"Now, Betty," and Patty shook her head at her, "you are a college graduate as well as a débutante,—you must know old Ike!"
"But I don't! You see, my début meant so much more to me than my commencement, that all I ever learned at college flew out of my head to make room for all I'm going to learn in society."
"Have you much left to learn?" asked Elise, looking at the piquant face that seemed to show its owner decidedly conversant with the ways of the world,—at least, her own part in it.
"Oh, indeed, yes! I only know how to smile and dance. I'm going to learn flirting, coquetry and getting engaged!"
"You're ambitious, little one," remarked Van Reypen. "Have you chosen your instructors?"
"I'm sure you won't need any," put in Elise, who was already jealous of Philip's interested looks at the new girl. "I think you could pass an efficiency examination already!"
"You ought to know," said Betty, with such an innocent and demure look at Elise, that it was difficult to determine whether she meant to be impertinent or not.
"Let me conduct the examination," said Philip; "shall it be public,—or will you go with me into a—a classroom?" and he looked toward the small "den" that opened from the library.
"Oh,