“That’s the best sort, Patty.  Remember, dear, flirtation is all very well; but in the man you marry you want those qualities you’ve just mentioned.”

“Oh, Nan, don’t you be serious, too!  Ken’s seriousness almost finished me.  And I suppose father will take the same tack!  Oh, I don’t want to be grown-up,—­I think it’s horrid!”

Nan looked sympathetically at Patty.

“I suppose, right here,” Patty went on, “I ought to burst into tears.  Don’t girls always cry over their first proposal?  But, Nan, I feel more like giggling.  I can’t help it.  It seems so ridiculous for Kenneth and me to go through that scene we had last evening.  We’ve been friends so long, and then for him, all of a sudden——­”

“It wasn’t sudden with him, Patty.  He’s been in love with you for years.”

“Yes, so he says.  Well, Nan, I don’t have to marry him, do I?”

“No, of course not.”

“Well, then, I’m not going to!  And I don’t want to be treated as if I were an ingrate because I don’t!  Ken is a splendid man, noble souled and all that, but I don’t love him and never shall.  Now please, Nan, be nice to me.”

“Why, Patty, dear, I never dreamed of not being nice to you!  I do want you to realise what you’re throwing away, but if you couldn’t be happy with Ken, of course, you mustn’t marry him.  He’s a very different temperament from you, and I think myself he would be a sort of a weight on your buoyant nature.  And if you’re sure of your own heart, that’s all there is about it.  But you must tell Ken so, just as kindly as possible, for I know it will be an awful blow to the poor fellow.  Did you tell him?”

“Yes, I did, but he insisted that I should think it over.”

“Well, think it over.  It won’t hurt you to do that.  And if you keep getting more and more certain that you don’t love Kenneth and never will, then you’ll know you’re right in your decision.  You’re a dear girl, Patty, and I want you to marry some time, and just the right man.”

“As you did.”

“Yes, as I did,” and Nan gave a happy smile.  “You will probably marry some one nearer your own age, Patty, but you can never be any happier than Fred and I are.”

“I believe you, you dear old thing!  Oh, here’s the mail, and I have not touched my breakfast yet.”

Jane came in with a lot of letters, and Patty pounced upon one in particular.

“Here’s a letter from Adele,” she cried.  “I hope she’s coming to the city, she’s been talking of it.”

But instead of that news, the letter contained an invitation for Patty to come up to Fern Falls for a visit.

“Come to spend May-day,” Adele wrote.  “I’m having a small house party; in part, a reunion of our Christmas crowd.  Daisy is here and Hal, of course, and we all want you.  Invite one or two of your beaux, if you like, but don’t bring any more girls; for we have two or three new neighbours with a superfluity of daughters.  Come as soon as you can, and stay as long as you will, and bring your prettiest frocks.  Oceans of love from me and Jim.  Adele.”