“There’s nothing to forgive,” she said, smiling; “you detest blondes, I know, but I’m thinking seriously of dyeing my hair black.”

“Don’t! that would be a sacrilege!  And you must remember that I told you I always adored blondes, until you told me you were brunette.”

“But I didn’t,” said Patty, laughing.  “Somehow you got the notion that I was dark, and I didn’t correct it.  Are you terribly disappointed in me?”

Naughty Patty raised her heavenly blue eyes and looked so like a fair, sweet flower that Kit exclaimed: 

“Disappointed!  You are an angel, straight from heaven!”

“Nonsense!  If you talk like that, I shall run away.”

“Don’t run away!  I’ll talk any way you like, but now that I have found you I shall keep you.  But I am still in depths of self-abasement.  Didn’t I say most unkind things about Miss Fairfield?”

“No unkinder than I did.  We both jumped on her, and said she was vain and horrid.”

“I never said such dreadful things!  I’m sure I didn’t.  But, if I did, I shall spend the rest of my life making up for it.  And I called you Poppycheek!”

Cameron looked at Patty’s cheeks in such utter dismay that she laughed outright.

“But you know,” she said, “there are pink poppies as well as scarlet.  Incidentally there are white and there are saffron yellow.”

“So there are,” said Cameron, delightedly.  “How you do help a fellow out!  Well, yours are just the colour of a soft, dainty pink poppy that is touched by the sunlight and kissed by a summer breeze.”

“I knew you were a poet,” said Patty, smiling, “but I don’t allow even a summer breeze to kiss my cheeks.”

“I should hope not!  A summer breeze is altogether too promiscuous with its kisses.  I hope you don’t allow any kisses, except those of your own particular swansdown powder puff.”

“Of course I don’t!” laughed Patty, and then she blushed furiously as she suddenly remembered how Farnsworth had kissed both her cheeks the night of Christine’s wedding.

“I see you’re blushing at a memory,” said Cameron, coolly; “I suppose the powder puff was too audacious.”

“Yes, that’s it,” said Patty, her liking for this young man increased by the pleasantry of his light banter.  “And now we must return to the music-room.  I came here a moment to catch my breath after singing; but how did you happen to be here?”

“I knew you’d come here; ostensibly, of course, to catch your breath, but really because you knew I’d be here.”

“You wretch!” cried Patty.  “How dare you say such things!  I never dreamed you’d be here; if I had, I shouldn’t have come.”

“Of course you wouldn’t, you little coquette!  It’s your nature to be perverse and capricious.  But your sweet good-humour won’t let you carry those other traits too far.  Oh, I know you, My Girl!”

“I object to that phrase from you,” Patty said, coldly, “and I must ask you not to use it again.”