Daggett. "Why should you be glad to see me, pray?"

"Why, because--because--" Mrs. St. Clair floundered a little, and
seemed really unable to give any reason.

"Because you've heard that I'm rich and old and queer?" said Miss
Daggett.

This was exactly true, but Mrs. St. Clair did not care to admit it, so
she said: "Why, no, not that; but I've heard my niece speak of you so
often that I felt anxious to meet you."

"Well, I'm not afraid of anything Patty Fairfield said about me; she's a
dear little girl; I'm very fond of her."

"Why do you call her little girl?" said Mrs. St. Clair. "Patty is in her
seventeenth year; surely that is not quite a child."

"But she is a child at heart," said Miss Daggett, "and I am glad of it. I
would far rather see her with her pretty, sunshiny childish ways than to
see her like that overdressed little minx standing over there beside her,
whoever she may be."

"That's my daughter," said Mrs. St. Clair, without, however, looking as
deeply offended as she might have done.

"Oh, is it?" said Miss Daggett, sniffing. "Well, I see no reason to
change my opinion of her, if she is."

"No," said Mrs. St. Clair, "of course we are each entitled to our own
opinion. Now, I think my daughter more appropriately dressed than my
niece. And I think your nephew will agree with me," she added, smiling.

"My nephew!" snapped Miss Daggett. "Do you know him?"

"Oh, yes, indeed; we met Mr. Harper at a reception in New York not long
ago, and he was very much charmed with my daughter Ethelyn."

"He may have seemed so," said Miss Daggett scornfully. "He is a very
polite young man. But let me tell you, he admires Patty Fairfield more
than any other girl he has ever seen. He told me so himself. And now, go
away, if you please, I'm tired of talking to you."

Mrs. St. Clair was not very much surprised at this speech, for Patty had
told her of Miss Daggett's summary method of dismissing people; and so,
with a sweet smile and a bow, the fashionable matron left the eccentric
and indignant spinster.

CHAPTER XVIII

A SAILING PARTY

After Aunt Isabel had gone home, Patty devoted herself to the
entertainment of her young cousins. And they seemed to require a great
deal of entertainment--both Ethelyn and Reginald wanted something done
for their pleasure all the time. They did not hesitate to express very
freely their opinions of the pleasures planned for them, and as they were
sophisticated young pe