Patty's Suitors

Patty looked up at Bill and read determination in his face. She knew it was no time for chaffing or foolishness. So she only said, as she looked straight at him,—"Miss Morton."

"Miss Morton! for Heaven's sake, what DO you mean?"

"The girl you're engaged to."

"The girl I'm engaged to! Patty, HAVE you taken leave of your senses?"

"Well, anyway, if you're not engaged to her, you're terribly in love with her! Your whole life and love is bound up in her!"

"Patty, I've heard there is a lunatic asylum over near Scottsville, and I'm going to take you right straight over there, unless you stop talking this rubbish! Now, if you're still possessed of the power of rational conversation, tell me who is this Miss Morton!"

"Miss Kate Morton,—the lady you're in love with."

Patty's spirits had begun to rise, and as she said this she looked up at Farnsworth, with demure face, but with a mouth dimpling into laughter.

"Kate Morton! Why, I haven't seen her for ten years!"

"Was it a hopeless affection, then? Are you only true to her memory?"

"Patty, BEHAVE yourself! Who mentioned Kate Morton's name to you?"

"Kitty! You always call her Kitty."

Farnsworth chuckled. "Call her KITTY! why, I'd sooner call the Flatiron

Building 'Kitty.' It would be about as appropriate."

"Well, anyway, you told Adele that you loved Kitty with all your heart and soul."

A great light seemed to break upon Farnsworth. He looked at Patty for a moment, with slowly broadening smile, and then he burst into irrepressible laughter.

"Oh, Patty!" he exclaimed, between his spasms of mirth; "Kitty! oh,

Kitty! Patty!"

Patty sat looking at him in stern silence.

"I should think, Mr. Farnsworth, if any one ought to go to a lunatic asylum it might as well be you! You sit there like an imbecile saying, oh, Patty! oh, Kitty!"

"I don't know which I love most, you or Kitty!" and again Farnsworth went off in a roar of laughter.

"I don't care to be mentioned in connection with Miss Morton," and

Patty tried her best to look like a tragedy queen.

"But it ISN'T Miss Morton, it's Kitty CLIVE."

"Adele said she couldn't remember her last name. But it doesn't matter to ME whether it's Miss Morton or Miss Clive."

"Oh, DON'T, Patty! You'll be the death of me! Why, Apple Blossom, Miss

Clive,—Kitty Clive,—is—my horse!"

Patty hesitated a moment, and then gave in, and laughed too.

"You must be AWFULLY fond of your horse," she said at last.

"I am; Kitty Clive is a wonder, and last summer we rode thousands of miles over the prairies. There NEVER was such a horse as my Kitty! And I remember I DID rave about her to Adele. But Adele MUST have known what I was talking about."

"No, she didn't. She thought it was a girl, and she told me not to—not to—" Patty floundered a little, and then concluded her sentence, "not to interfere."

"And, so, Apple Blossom, you were cool to me,—you were cruel to me,—you had no more use for me whatever; because you thought I liked another girl?"

"Well—I didn't want to interfere."

"You BLESSED Posy-Face! do you know what this MEANS to me? It means that you CARE—"

"No, I DON'T, Bill! I don't care if you like all the girls in the world. Only, you mustn't like them better than you do me."

"As if I COULD like anybody better than I do you!"

"And then we're friends again?"

"Friends!"

"Yes, friends. Don't you want to be friends with me, Little Billee?"

"Apple Blossom, I want to be to you anything and everything that you will let me be."

"Then we will be friends. Chums and comrades and good, GOOD friends."

Patty put a little pink hand out from the big coat sleeve and Bill clasped it in his great warm hand.

"Chums,—Apple Blossom,—and comrades, and good, GOOD friends!"