uch a fishy nephew I'd get
along beautifully."

"Oho! A nephew, eh? And he's smitten with your charms, as they always are
in novels."

"Yes," said Patty, in a simpering tone.

"Oh, yes! I can't see you, but I know you have your finger in your mouth
and your eyes shyly cast down."

"You're _so_ clever!" murmured Patty, giggling. "But now you may go, Ken,
for I don't want to talk to you any more. Come round Thursday night,
can't you, and welcome me home?"

"Pooh, you're late with your invitation. Mrs. Fairfield has already
invited me to dinner that very evening."

"Good! Well, good-by for now. I have reasons for wishing to discontinue
this conversation."

"And I have reasons for wishing to keep on. If you're tired talking, sing
to me."

"'Thou art so near and yet so far,'" hummed Patty, in her clear, sweet
voice.

"No, don't sing. Central will think you're a concert. Well, good-by till
Thursday."

"Good-by," said Patty, and hung up the receiver.

But she felt much more cheerful at having talked with Kenneth, and the
coming days seemed easier to bear.

They proved, however, to be quite hard enough.

The very next day, when Patty went down to the breakfast room, determined
to do her best to please Mrs. Van Reypen, she found that lady suffering
from an attack of neuralgia.

Though not a serious one, it seriously affected her temper, and she was
cross and irritable to a degree that Patty had never seen equalled.

She snapped at the servants; she was short of speech to Patty; she found
fault with everything, from the coffee to the cat.

After breakfast they went to the sunny, pleasant morning room, and Patty
made up her mind to a hard day.

Then she had an inspiration. She remembered how susceptible Mrs. Van
Reypen was to flattery, and she determined to see if large doses of it
wouldn't cure her ill temper.

"How lovely your hair is," said Patty, apropos of nothing. "I do so
admire white hair, and yours is so abundant and of such fine texture."

As she had hoped, Mrs. Van Reypen smiled in a pleased way.

"Ah, Miss Fairfield, you should have seen it when I was a girl. It was
phenomenal. But of late years it has come out sadly."

"You still have quantities," said Patty, and very truthfully, too, "and
its silvery whiteness is so becoming to your complexion."

"Do you think so?" said Mrs. Van Reypen, smiling most amiably. "I think
it's much wiser not to colour one's hair, for now-a-days so many people