“What for?” queried Jack.

“To help plan the Pageant.  You’ll be in it, won’t you, Patty?  It’s for charity, you know.”

“I can’t promise until I know more about it.  What would I have to do?”

“Oh, you have to be part of a float.  Stand on a high, wabbly pedestal, you know, and wave your arms about like a classic marble figure.”

“But I never saw a classic marble figure wave her arms about,” objected Patty; “indeed, the most classic ones don’t have arms to wave.  Look at the Milo Venus.”

“I can’t look at her, she isn’t here.  But I look at you, and I see you’re just the one for ‘The Spirit of the Sea.’  Isn’t she, Lora?”

But Lora Sayre had set her heart on that part for herself, so she said, in a half-absent way, “Yes, I think so.”

“You think so!” put in Jack Pennington.  “I know so!  Patty would make a perfect ‘Spirit of the Sea.’  I vote for her!”

“I’m not a candidate,” said Patty, who had divined Lora’s wish.  “I won’t agree to take any special part until I know more about the whole thing.”

“Well, you’ll soon know all about it,” went on Guy.  “We’re going to have a meeting soon to arrange for the parts, and plan everything.”

“Have that meeting at our house, won’t you?” asked Patty, suddenly.  “I mean at ‘Red Chimneys.’  Won’t you all meet there?”

“Why, yes,” said Guy.  “We’ll be very glad to.  I tell you, there’s lots to be done.”

Patty had made her suggestion because she knew that if the committee met at “Red Chimneys,” they couldn’t help giving Mona a good part in the Pageant, and if not, she couldn’t feel sure what might happen.

But Lora didn’t look satisfied.  “I thought you’d meet here,” she said, “because mother is chairman of the Float Committee.”

“I know,” returned Guy, “but, for that very reason, she’ll have to have a lot of other meetings here.  And as I’m supposed to look after the Sea Float, I thought it a kindness to your mother to have our meetings elsewhere.”

“Oh, I don’t care,” said Lora, “have them where you like.”

Lora turned to speak to some people passing, and then walked away with them.

“Now she’s mad!” commented Jack.  “That’s the beautiful part of getting up a show; all the girls get mad, one after another.”

“I’M going to get mad!” announced Patty, deliberately.

“You are!” exclaimed Lena Lockwood, in amazement.  “I didn’t know you could get mad!”

“Patty gets about as mad as a small Angora kitten,” said Jack.

“Yes,” agreed Patty, “and I can tell you, kittens, like cats, get awful mad, if they want to.  Now I’m going to get mad, if you people don’t tell me all about this show, now!  I don’t want to wait for meetings and things.”

“I’ll tell you now,” said Guy, speaking very fast.  “It’s to be a Pageant, a great and glittering Pageant, made up of floats with tableaux on ’em, and bands of music playing, and banners streaming, and coloured fire firing, all over Spring Beach.”