With the instincts of a true hostess, Patty had slipped from the room unobserved, and had held a short Confab with her two trusty servitors in the kitchen.

"But, Miss Patty," expostulated Mancy, "dey ain't nuffin' fit to set befo' dem fren's ob yo's. Dey ain't nuffin' skacely in de house, ceptin' some bits ob candies an' cakaroons le' from yo' las' night's supper."

"Well, that's all right," said Patty; "let Pansy arrange those nicely on the dining-room table. Use the silver dishes, Pansy, and fix them just as I told you."

"Yes, Miss Patty," said Pansy, "but there aren't very many left."

"Well, then, Mancy, I'll tell you what: you make us a nice pot of chocolate, and fix us some thin bread and butter, and cut up some of the fruit cake to put with those little fancy cakes; won't that do?"

"Yas'm, I spec' so; but it's a mighty slim layout, 'specially for dem hearty young chaps. But you go 'long, honey, I'll fix it somehow."

And, sure enough, she did fix it somehow; for when, a little later, Patty invited her young friends out into the dining-room, the thin bread and butter had doubled itself up into most attractive and satisfying chicken-sandwiches, and there was also a plate of delicious toasted crackers and cheese.

Mr. Fairfield added a box of candy which he had brought home from New York, and the unpretentious little feast proved most enjoyable to all concerned.

"I should think you would feel all the time as if you were acting a play yourself, Patty," said Elsie Morris, taking her seat at the prettily laid table.

"I do," said Patty as she took her own place at the head; "it's awfully hard to realise that I am monarch of all I survey."

"But you have someone to dispute your right," said her father.

"And I'm glad of it," said Patty. "Whatever should I do living here all alone just with my rights?"

"By her rights, she means her cousins," put in Frank.

"Yes," said Patty; "they're about as right as anything I know."

And so the evening passed in merry chaff and good-natured fun; and at its close the young guests all went away except Marian, who was going to spend the night at Boxley Hall.

After her cousin had gone upstairs to her pretty blue bedroom, Patty lingered a moment in the library for a word with her father.

"How am I getting along, papa?" she said. "How about the proportion to-night?"

"The market seems pretty strong on proportion to-day, Patty, dear; your housekeeping is beginning wonderfully well. That little dinner you gave us was first-class in every respect, and the simple refreshments you had this evening were very pretty and graceful."

"Don't praise me too much, papa, or I'll grow conceited."

"You'll get praise from me, my lady, just when you deserve it, and at no other time. Now, skip along to bed, or you'll have too great a proportion of late hours."

With a good-night kiss Patty went singing upstairs, feeling sure that she was the happiest and most fortunate little girl in the world.

So impressed was she with her realisation of this fact that she announced it to Marian.

Marian looked at her curiously.

"You

are

fortunate in some ways," she said; "but the real reason you're always so happy, I think, is because of your happy disposition. A great many girls with no mother or brother or sister, who had all the care and responsibility of a big house, and whose father was away all day, would think they had a pretty miserable life. But that never seems to occur to you."

"No," said Patty contentedly; "and I don't believe it ever will."

The next morning Patty devoted all her energy to getting ready for the Tea Club. She declined Marian's offers of help, saying:

"No, I really don't need any help. If I can keep Pansy out of the conservatory, we three can accomplish all there is to be done; so you go and sit by the library fire, and toast your toes and read, or play with the cat, or do whatever you please. Remember, whenever you come here, you're one of the family."

So Marian went off by herself and played on the piano, and read, and had various kinds of good times, scrupulously keeping out of the way of her busy and preoccupied cousin.

"Now, Pansy," said Patty, as she captured that culprit in the conservatory, and led her off to the kitchen, "I want you to try especially hard to-day to do just as I want you to, and to help me in every possible way."

"Can I fix the flowers, Miss Patty?" said Pansy Potts, her eyes sparkling with delight.

"Where are there any flowers to fix? You've fussed over those in the conservatory until you've nearly worn them all out."

"Oh, Miss Patty, they're thriving beautifully. But I mean that big box of flowers that just came up from the flower man's. He said Mr. Fairfield sent it."

"Oh!" exclaimed Patty, "did papa really send me up flowers for the Tea Club? How perfectly lovely! I meant to order some myself, but I know his will be nicer."

By this time Patty was diving into the big box and scattering tissue paper all about.

"They're beautiful," she exclaimed, "and what lots of them! Yes, Pansy, you may arrange them; you really do it better than I do. Keep all the pink ones for the dining-room, and put the others wherever you like. Now, Mancy," she went on, "we'll discuss what to eat."

"Yas'm, and I s'pose it'll be some ob dem highfalutin fandangoes ob yo's, what nobody can't eat."

"You guessed right the very first time," said Patty, smiling back at the good-natured old cook, whose bark was so much worse than her bite. "You see, Mancy, this is my own party, and so I can have just what I like at it. Not even papa can object to the things that I have for my own Tea Club."

"Dat's so, chile, but co'se yo' knows you'se mighty likely to spoil dem good t'ings befo' yo' get 'em made."

"Oh, I don't think I will this time," said Patty, with that assured little toss of her head which always meant perfect confidence in her own ability.

Mancy said nothing, but grunted somewhat doubtfully as Patty went on to describe the beautiful things she intended to have.

"I want rissoles," she said, as she turned over the cookery-book, and looked in the index for R. "They're awfully good."

"What's dem, missy? I never heard tell of 'em."

"I forget what they are," said Patty, "but we had them at Delmonico's one day, when papa and I were there at lunch, and I remember thinking then they'd be nice for the Tea Club. They were either some little kind of a cake, or else a sort of croquette. Either would be nice, you know. Why, they're not here. What a silly book not to have them in! Oh, well, never mind, here's 'Richmond Maids of Honour.' We used to have those at Aunt Isabel's, and they're the loveliest things. I'll make those, Mancy; and while I'm doing it you make me some wine jelly and some Bavarian cream, and then I can put them together with

marrons

and candied cherries and whipped cream and things, and make a Royal Diplomatic Pudding."

"'Pears like yo's makin' things fine enough for a weddin'," growled Mancy.

"Well, now, look here, last night you thought the things I had for my evening company were too plain, and now you're grumbling because they're too fancy."

"Laws, honey, can't you see no diffunce 'tween plain bread and butter and a lot of pernicketty gimcracks that never turns out right nohow?"

A haunting doubt regarding the proportion between her elaborate plans and the simple Tea Club hovered round Patty's mind, but she resolutely put it aside, thinking to herself, "I don't care, it's my first function, and I'm going to have it just as nice as I can."

Patty always felt particularly grand and grown up when she used the word

function

, and now that she had mentally applied it to the Tea Club meeting, that simple affair seemed to take on a gigantic amplitude and fairly seemed to cry out for elaborate devices of all sorts.

"Never you mind, Mancy," she said, "you just go ahead and do as I tell you. Get the jelly and cream ready, and I'll do the rest."

"But ain't yo' gwine to have no solidstantial kind o' food?"

"Oh, yes, of course. I want a

croustade

of chicken and club-sandwiches."

"Humph," said Mancy, her patience giving out at this, "ef yo' does, yo'll hab to talk English."

Patty laughed. "You must get used to these names, Mancy, because these are the kind of things I like. Well, you just boil a couple of chickens, and cut them up small, and see that there are two loaves of bread ready, those long round, crimply ones, you know, and then I'll put it all together and all you'll have to do is to brown it. And I'll show you how to make the club-sandwiches after lunch. You might as well learn once for all, you know. There's bacon in the house, isn't there?"

"No, dey ain't; is yo' fren's gwine stay ter breakfus'?"

"Oh, no, I'd want the bacon for the club-sandwiches. Don't worry, Mancy, they'll all come out right."

"Dey mought and den again dey moughtn't," grumbled the old woman, but undaunted Patty went on measuring and weighing with a surety of success that is found only in the young and inexperienced.

At one o'clock Marian walked out into the kitchen.

"Good gracious, Patty Fairfield," she exclaimed, "what are you doing? And what are all those things? Do you expect the Democratic Convention to be entertained here, or are you going to give the Sunday-school a picnic? And are we never to have lunch? I'm simply starving!"

Patty turned a flushed face to her cousin, and looked dazed and bewildered.

"Two and five-eighths ounces of sugar," she said, "spun to a thread; add chopped nuts and the well-beaten whites of six eggs; brown with a salamander. Marian, I haven't any salamander!"

The tragic tone of Patty's awful avowal was too much for Marian, and she dropped into a kitchen chair and went off into peals of laughter.

"Patty," she cried, "you goose! What are you doing? Just making up the whole recipe-book, page by page? I believe you're crazy!"

"It's for the Tea Club," exclaimed Patty, "and I want things to be nice."

"H'm," said Marian, "and

are

they nice?"

She glanced at some of the completed delicacies on the table, and Patty, seeing the look, turned red again, but this time it was not the effect of the kitchen range.

"Well," she said, "some of them aren't quite right, but I think the others will be."

"And I think you're working too hard," said Marian kindly. "You come away with me now, and rest a little bit; and, Mancy, you put a little lunch for us on the dining-room table, won't you? Just anything will do, you know."

CHAPTER XII

A TEA CLUB TEA

Patty rebelled at being overruled in this manner, but Marian had some Fairfield firmness of her own, and taking her cousin's arm led her to the library and plumped her down upon the couch in a reclining position, while she vigorously jammed pillows under her head.

"There, miss," she announced, "you will please stay there until luncheon is announced."

"But, Marian," pleaded Patty, seeing that resistance was useless, "I've such a lot of things to do, and the girls will be here before I get them all done."

"Let them come," said the hard-hearted Marian, "it won't hurt them a bit, and you've got enough things done now to feed the Russian army."

"But they're not finished," said Patty, "and they'll spoil standing."

"You'll more likely spoil them by finishing them. Now you stay right where you are."

So Patty rested, until Pansy came and called them to a most appetising little lunch spread very simply on the dining-table.

The two hungry girls did full justice to it, and then Patty said:

"Now, Marian, you're a duck, and you mean well, I know; but this is my house and my tea-party, and now you must clear out and leave me to fix it up pretty in my own way."

"All right," said Marian, "I rescued you once, now this time I'll leave you to your fate; but I'll give you fair warning that those Tea Club girls would rather have a few nice little things like we had at lunch, than all those ridiculous contraptions that you've got out there half baked."

"Oh me, oh me!" sighed Patty, in mock despair. "Nobody appreciates me; nobody realises or cares for my one great talent. I believe I'll go and drown myself."

"Do," said Marian, "drown yourself in that tub of wine-jelly, for it will never stiffen. I can tell that by looking at it."

"Bye, bye," said Patty, pushing Marian out of the dining-room, "run along now, and take a little nap like a good little girl. Cousin Patty must set the table all nice for the pretty ladies."

"Goose!" was the only comment Marian vouchsafed as she walked away.

Then Patty, with the assistance of Pansy Potts, proceeded to lay the table. Elaborate decoration was her keynote and she kept well in tune. Along the centre of the table over the damask cloth, she spread a rich lace "runner" and over this, crossed bands of wide, pink, satin ribbon ran the entire diagonal length of the table. In the centre was a large cut-glass bowl of pink roses, and at each corner slender vases of a single rose in each. Also single roses with long stems and leaves were laid at intervals on the cloth. Asparagus fern was lavishly used, and pink-shaded candles in silver candlesticks adorned the table. Small silver dishes of almonds, olives, and confectionery were dotted about, and finger-bowls with plates were set out on the side-table.

Certainly it was all very beautiful, and Patty surveyed it with feelings of absolute satisfaction.

"We will have tea at five o'clock, Pansy," she said, "and just before that, you light the candles and fill the glasses and see that everything is ready."

"Yes, Miss Patty," said Pansy, who adored her young mistress, and who was especially quick in learning to do exactly what was expected of her.

The afternoon was slipping away, and Patty suddenly discovered that she had only time to get dressed before the girls would arrive.

So she announced to Mancy that she must finish up such things as were not finished, and without waiting to hear the old woman's remarks of disapproval, Patty ran up to her room.

There she found that Marian had kindly laid out her dress and ribbons for her, and was ready to help do her hair.

"You're a good old thing, Marian," she said, as she dropped into a chair in front of her toilet mirror, "I'm as tired as a bicycle wheel, and besides, I do love to have somebody do my hair. Sometimes Pansy does it, but to-day she's too busy."

"Taking days as they go," said Marian in an impersonal manner, "I don't think I ever saw a more busy one than to-day has seemed to be. The Tea Club does seem to make a most awful amount of fluster in a new house."

"Yes, it

exacting, isn't it?" said Patty, who caught her cousin's eye in the mirror and looked very demure, though she refused to smile.

"There are some of the girls coming in at the front gate now," said Marian as she tied the big white bow on Patty's pretty, fluffy hair. "Didn't I time this performance just right?"

"You did indeed," said Patty, and kissing her cousin, she ran gaily downstairs.

How the Tea Club girls did chatter that afternoon! there was so much to see and talk about in Patty's new home, and there were also other weighty matters to be discussed.

The proposed entertainment was an engrossing subject, and as various opinions were held, the arguments were lively and outspoken.

"You can talk all you like," said Helen Preston, "but you'll find that a bazaar will be the most sensible thing after all. You're sure to make a lot of money, and the boys will help, and we all know exactly what to do and how to go about it."

"It may be sensible," said Laura Russell, "but it won't be a bit of fun. Stupid, poky, old chestnut; nobody wants to come to buy things, they only come because they think they have to. Now if we had a play—"

"Yes," said Elsie Morris, "a play would be the very nicest thing. I've brought two books for us to look over. One's that Shakespeare thing, and the other is called 'A Reunion at Mother Goose's.' It's awfully funny; I think it's better than the Shakespeare."

"I think Mother Goose things are silly," said Ethel Holmes. "Who wants to go around dressed up like Little Bo-peep, and say 'Ba, ba, black sheep,' all the time?"

"Yes, or who wants to be Red Riding Hood's wolf and eat up Mary's little lamb?"

"Oh, it isn't like that; it's a reunion, you know, and all the Mother Goose children are grown up, and they talk about old times."

"It does sound nice," said Patty, "let's read it."

They read both the plays, and so interested were they in the reading and discussing them that before they knew it the afternoon slipped away, and Pansy Potts came in to announce that the tea was ready.

"Goodness," cried Patty, "I forgot all about it! Come on, girls, we can discuss the play just as well at the table."

"Yes, and better," said Elsie.

Such a shout of exclamation as went up from the Tea Club girls when they saw Patty's table.

"Why didn't you tell us there was to be a wedding?" said Ethel, "and we would have brought presents."

"Is it an African jungle?" said Laura, "or is it only Smith's flower store moved up here bodily?"

"I think it looks like a page out of the

Misses' Home Guide

" said Polly Stevens. "You ought to have this table photographed, it would take the first prize! But where are we going to eat? Surely you don't expect us to sit down at this Louis XlV. gimcrack?"

"Nonsense," said Patty. "I fixed it up pretty because I thought it would please you. If you don't like it—"

"Oh, we like it," cried Christine Converse, "we love it! We want to take it home with us and put it under a glass case."

"Stop your nonsense, girls," said Marian, who had noticed Patty's rising colour, "and take your places. It's a beautiful party, and a lot too good for such ungrateful wretches! If you can read writing, you'll find your names on your cards."

"I can read writing," said Lillian Desmond, "but not such elegant gold curlycues as these. Won't you please spell it out for me, Miss Fairfield?"

"Oh, take any place you choose," said Patty, laughing good-naturedly. She didn't really mind their chaff, but she began to think herself that she had been a little absurd.

Then Pansy brought in the various dishes that Patty had worked so hard over, and perhaps you will not be surprised to learn that they were almost uneatable, or, at least, very far from the dainty perfection they ought to have shown.

On discovering this, the girls, who were really well-bred, in spite of their love of chaffing, quite changed their manner and, ignoring the situation, began merrily to discuss the play.

But as the various viands proved a continuous succession of failures, Patty became really embarrassed and began to make apologies.

"Don't say a word," said Marian; "it was all my fault. I insisted on spending the day here, and I nearly bothered the life out of my poor cousin. Indeed, I carried her off bodily from the kitchen just at a dozen critical moments."

"No, it wasn't that," said honest Patty, "but I did just what I'm always doing, trying to make a lot of things I don't know anything about"

"Well," said Elsie, "if you couldn't try them on us girls, I don't know who you could try them on; I'm more than willing to be a martyr to the cause, and I say three cheers for our noble President!"

The cheers were given with a will, and Patty's equanimity being restored, she was her own merry self again, and they all laughed and chatted as only a lot of happy girls can.

And that's how it happened that when Mr. Fairfield reached home at about six o'clock he heard what sounded like a general pandemonium in the dining-room. As he appeared in the doorway he was greeted by a merry ovation, for most of the Tea Club members knew and liked Patty's pleasant and genial father.

Then the girls, realising how late it was, began to take their leave. Marian went with them, and Patty, after the last one had gone, returned to the dining-room, to find her father regarding the table with a look of comical dismay.

It was indeed a magnificent ruin. Besides the dishes of almost untasted delicacies, the flowers had been pushed into disarray, one small vase had been upset and broken; owing to improper adjustment the candles had dripped pink wax on the table-cloth; and the ice cream, which Pansy had mistakenly served on open-work plates, had melted and run through.

Patty didn't say a word, indeed there was nothing to say. She went and stood very close to her father, as if expecting him to put his arm around her, which he promptly did.

"You see, Pitty-Pat," he said, "it wouldn't have made any difference at all—not

any

difference at all,

except

that I have brought my friend Mr. Hepworth, the artist, home to dinner; and you see, misled by the experiences of last night, I promised him we would find a tidy little dinner awaiting us."

"Oh, papa," cried Patty, "I

sorry. If I had only known! I wouldn't have failed you for worlds."

"I know it, my girl, and though this Lucullus feast does seem out of proportion to a young misses' Tea Club, yet we won't say a word about that now. We'll just get snow shovels and set to work and clear this table and let Mancy get a simple little dinner as quickly as she can."

"But, papa," and here Patty met what was, perhaps, so far, the hardest experience of her life, "I forgot to order anything for dinner at all!"

"Why, Patty Fairfield! consider yourself discharged, and I shall suit myself at once with another housekeeperess!"

"You are the dearest, best, sweetest father!" she exclaimed. "How can you be so good-natured and gay when my heart is breaking?"

"Oh, don't let your heart break over such prosaic things as dinners! We'll crawl out of this hole somehow."

"But what can we do, papa? It's after six o'clock, and all the markets are shut up, and there isn't a thing in the house except those horrible things I tried to make."

"Patty," said her father, struck by a sudden thought, "to-morrow is Sunday. Do you mean to say you haven't ordered for over Sunday?"

"No, I haven't," said Patty, aghast at the enormity of her offence.

Mr. Fairfield laughed at the horror-stricken look on his daughter's face.

"I always thought you couldn't keep house," he said, with an air of resignation. "On Monday I shall advertise for a housekeeper."

"Oh, please don't," pleaded Patty. "Give me one more trial. I've had a good lesson, and truly I'll profit by it. Let me try again."

"But you can't try again before Monday, and by that time we'll all be dead of starvation."

"Of course we will," said Patty despairingly. "I wish we were Robinson Crusoes and could eat bark or something."

"Well, baby, I think you

have

had a pretty good lesson, and we can't put old heads on young shoulders all at once, so I'll help you out this time, and then, the next time you go back on me in this heartless fashion, I'll discharge you."

"Papa, you're a

dear

! But what can we do?"

"Well, the first thing for you to do is to go and brush your hair and make yourself tidy, then come down and meet Mr. Hepworth; and then we'll all go over to the hotel for dinner. Meanwhile I'll call in the Stree