"
"You're a funny girl, Patty," and Marie looked at her with big,
serious eyes.
"If it's funny to be a common-sense, rational human being, then I AM
funny! Now, good-night, chickabiddy. Mrs. Perry says she'll send up
our breakfast about nine to-morrow morning. Hop into my room and
have it with me, won't you?"
Marie agreed to this arrangement, and gathering up her belongings,
Patty slipped across the hall to her own room.
The wood fire had burnt down to red embers, and lowering the lights,
Patty sat down for a few moments in a big fireside chair to think.
She had told the truth, that she did not want to think seriously of
what Marie called "an especial liking" for anybody; but what Kenneth
had said that evening troubled her.
Her friendship for Kenneth was so firm and strong, her real regard
for him so deep and sincere, that she hated to have it intruded upon
by a question of a more serious feeling. And she had never suspected
that any such question would arise. But she could not mistake the
meaning of Kenneth's spoken wish that he might be capable of the gay
conversation in which Patty delighted.
"Dear old Ken," she said to herself, "he's so nice just as he is,
but when he tries to be funny, he--well, he CAN'T, that's all.
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