“Do you want to know what is the matter?” asked Mrs. Farrington, as she took the handkerchief from Patty’s hand.  “Well, go and look behind those curtains, and see what’s in the alcove.”

“I suppose,” said Patty, as she deliberately walked the length of the long drawing-room, “you’ve been buying the Venus of Milo, and it’s just been sent home, and you’ve set it up here behind these curtains.  Well, I shall be pleased to admire it, I’m sure!”

She drew the crimson curtains apart, and right before her, instead of a marble statue, stood her father and Nan!

Then such an exciting time as there was!

Patty threw her arms around them both at once, and everybody was laughing, and they all talked at the same time, and Patty understood at last why they had been directed to put on their new dresses.

“Can it be possible that this is my little girl!” exclaimed Mr. Fairfield, as he drew Patty down up on his knee, quite as he used to when she was really a little girl.

“Nonsense!” cried Nan; “you haven’t changed a bit, Patty, except to grow about half an inch taller, and to be wearing a remarkably pretty dress.”

“And you people haven’t changed a bit, either,” declared Patty; “and oh, I’m so glad to see you!”

She flew back and forth from one of her parents to the other, pinching them, to make sure, as she said, that they were really there.

“And now tell me all about it,” she said, looking at the others; “did you all know they were coming?”

“No,” said Mrs. Farrington; “Mr. Farrington and I have known it for some weeks, but we didn’t dare tell Elise, for she’s such a chatterbox she never could have kept the secret, and we wanted so much to surprise you.”

“Well, you have surprised me,” said Patty; “and it’s the loveliest surprise I ever had.  Oh, what fun it will be to take you benighted people around to see Paris.”

So Elise declared it was a party after all, and the dinner was a very merry one, and the whole evening was spent in gay chatter about the winter just past, and making plans for the summer to come.

Patty didn’t gather very definitely what these plans were, but she soon learned that Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield had come to Paris really to get her, and then they were going on to London; and where else, Patty neither knew nor cared.

The Farringtons were to return soon to America, and so the whole change of outlook was so sudden that Patty was bewildered.

“You look as if you didn’t quite know yet what has happened,” said Mr. Fairfield to Patty, as the whole party stood in the hall saying their good-nights.

“I don’t, papa,” said Patty; “but I’m very happy.  I’ve had a delightful winter, and Mr. and Mrs. Farrington have been most beautifully kind, and Elise is just the dearest chum in the world; but you know, papa, home is where the heart is, and my heart belongs just to you and Nan, and so now I feel that I am home again at last.”