Patty's Summer Days
CHAPTER I
A GAY HOUSEHOLD
“Isn’t Mrs. Phelps too perfectly sweet! That is the loveliest fan I ever laid eyes on, and to think it’s mine!”
“And will you look at this? A silver coffee-machine! Oh, Nan, mayn’t I make it work, sometimes?”
“Indeed you may; and oh, see this! A piece of antique Japanese bronze! Isn’t it great?”
“I don’t like it as well as the sparkling, shiny things. This silver tray beats it all hollow. Did you ever see such a brightness in your life?”
“Patty, you’re hopelessly Philistine! But that tray is lovely, and of an exquisite design.”
Patty and Nan were unpacking wedding presents, and the room was strewn with boxes, tissue paper, cotton wool, and shredded-paper packing.
Only three days more, and then Nan Allen was to marry Mr. Fairfield, Patty’s father.
Patty was spending the whole week at the Allen home in Philadelphia, and was almost as much interested in the wedding preparations as Nan herself.
“I don’t think there’s anything so much fun as a house with a wedding fuss in it,” said Patty to Mrs. Allen, as Nan’s mother came into the room where the girls were.
“Just wait till you come to your own wedding fuss, and then see if you think it’s so much fun,” said Nan, who was rapidly scribbling names of friends to whom she must write notes of acknowledgment for their gifts.
“That’s too far in the future even to think of,” said Patty, “and besides, I must get my father married and settled, before I can think of myself.”
She wagged her head at Nan with a comical look, and they all laughed.
It was a great joke that Patty’s father should be about to marry her dear girl friend. But Patty was mightily pleased at the prospect, and looked forward with happiness to the enlarged home circle.
“The trouble is,” said Patty, “I don’t know what to call this august personage who insists on becoming my father’s wife.”
“I shall rule you with a rod of iron,” said Nan, “and you’ll stand so in awe of me, that you won’t dare to call me anything.”
“You think so, do you?” said Patty saucily. “Well, just let me inform you, Mrs. Fairfield, that is to be, that I intend to lead you a dance! You’ll be responsible for my manners and behaviour, and I wish you joy of your undertaking. I think I shall call you Stepmamma.”
“Do,” said Nan placidly, “and I’ll call you Stepdaughter Patricia.”
“Joking aside,” said Patty, “honestly, Nan, I am perfectly delighted that the time is coming so soon to have you with us. Ever since last fall I have waited patiently, and it seemed as if Easter would never come. Won’t we have good times though after you get back from your trip and we get settled in that lovely house in New York! If only I didn’t have to go to school, and study like fury out of school, too, we could have heaps of fun.”
“I’m afraid you’re studying too hard, Patty,” said Mrs. Allen, looking at her young guest.
“She is, Mother,” said Nan, “and I wish she wouldn’t. Why do you do it, Patty?”
“Well, you see, it’s this way. I found out the first of the year that I was ahead of my class in some studies, and that if I worked extra hard I could get ahead on the other studies, and,—well, I can’t exactly explain it, but it’s like putting two years’ work into one; and then I could graduate from the Oliphant school this June, instead of going there another year, as I had expected. Then, if I do that, Papa says I may stay home next year, and just have masters in music and French, and whatever branches I want to keep up. So I’m trying, but I hardly think I can pass the examinations after all.”
“Well, you’re not going to study while you’re here,” said Mrs. Allen, “and after we get Nan packed off on Thursday, you and I are going to have lovely times. You must stay with me as long as you can, for I shall be dreadfully lonesome without my own girl.”
“Thank you, dear Mrs. Allen, I am very happy here, and I love to stay with you; but of course I can stay only as long as our Easter vacation lasts. I must go back to New York the early part of next week.”
“Well, we’ll cram all the fun possible into the few days you are here then,” and Patty’s gay little hostess bustled away to look after her household appointments.
Mrs. Allen was of a social, pleasure-loving nature. Indeed, it was often said that she cared more for parties and festive gatherings than did her daughter Nan.
Nobody was surprised to learn that Nan Allen was to marry a man many years older than herself. The surprise came when they met Mr. Fairfield and discovered that that gentleman appeared to be much younger than he undoubtedly was.
For Patty’s father, though nearly forty years old, had a frank, ingenuous manner, and a smile that was almost boyish in its gaiety.
Mrs. Allen was in her element superintending her daughter’s wedding, and the whole affair was to be on a most elaborate scale. Far more so than Nan herself wished, for her tastes were simple, and she would have preferred a quieter celebration of the occasion.
But as Mrs. Allen said, it was her last opportunity to provide an entertainment for her daughter, and she would not allow her plans to be thwarted.
So preparations for the great event went busily on. Carpenters came and enclosed the wide verandas, and decorators came and hung the newly made walls with white cheese cloth, and trimmed them with garlands of green. The house was invaded with decorators, caterers, and helpers of all sorts, while neighbours and friends of Mrs. Allen and of Nan flew in and out at all hours.
The present-room was continually thronged by admiring friends who never tired of looking at the beautiful gifts already upon the tables, or watching the opening of new ones.
“There’s the thirteenth cut-glass ice-tub,” said Nan, as she tore the tissue paper wrapping from an exquisite piece of sparkling glass. “I should think it an unlucky number if I didn’t feel sure that one or two more would come yet.”
“What are you going to do with them all, Nan?” asked one of her girl friends; “shall you exchange any of your duplicate gifts?”
“No indeed,” said Nan, “I’m too conservative and old-fashioned to exchange my wedding gifts. I shall keep the whole thirteen, and then when one gets broken, I can replace it with another. Accidents will happen, you know.”
“But not thirteen times, and all ice-tubs!” said Patty, laughing. “You’ll have to use them as individuals, Nan. When you give a dinner party of twelve, each guest can have a separate ice-tub, which will be very convenient.”
“I don’t care,” said Nan, taking the jest good-humouredly, “I shall keep them all, no matter how many I get. And I always did like ice-tubs, anyway.”
Another great excitement was when Nan’s gowns were sent home from the dressmaker’s. Patty was frankly fond of pretty clothes, and she fairly revelled in Nan’s beautiful trousseau. To please Patty, the bride-elect tried them all on, one after another, and each seemed more beautiful than the one before. When at last Nan stood arrayed in her bridal gown, with veil and orange blossoms complete, Patty’s ecstacy knew no bounds.
“You are a picture, Nan!” she cried. “A perfect dream! I never saw such a beautiful bride. Oh, I am so glad you’re coming to live with us, and then I can try on that white satin confection and prance around in it myself.”
They all laughed at this, and Nan exclaimed, in mock reproach:
“I’d like to see you do it, Miss! Prance around in my wedding gown, indeed! Have you no more respect for your elderly and antiquated Stepmamma than that?”
Patty giggled at Nan’s pretended severity, and danced round her, patting a fold here, and picking out a bow there, and having a good time generally.
The next day there was a luncheon, to which Mrs. Allen had invited a number of Nan’s dearest girl friends.
Patty