, as she jumped down from the chair for the last
time, "you don't want any other pictures, do you? It would interfere with
the artistic unities to introduce any other school."

"Laws 'a' massy, chile; I don't want to go to school! Miss Patty,
sometimes you does cert'nly talk like a Choctaw Injun. Leastways, _I_
can't understand you."

"It doesn't really matter," said Patty, "and we're even, anyway; for I
can't understand why _you_ want those fearful posters in your room,
instead of the nice little pictures I had planned to give you."

"Oh, yes; I knows yo' nice little pictures! with a narrow black ban',
jes' about the size ob a sheet of mo'nin' paper! No, thank you, missy,
no black-bordered envelopes hanging on my wall! Give me good reds and
yallers and blues; the kind you can hear with yo' eyes shut. That is,
ef yo' don't mind, missy. Ef yo' does, I'll take 'em all right
slam-bang down."

"No, no, Mancy; it's all right. In your own room I want you to have just
exactly what you want, and nothing else. Now, let's go and see how
Pansy's getting along."

The rockery was completed, and was a most imposing structure. Wheat ears
and dried oats were sticking out from between the stones, and pressed
autumn leaves added a touch of colour. At the base of the rockery were a
large pink-lined conch-shell and several smaller shells. On the walls
were various branches of different species of vegetation; among others a
tangle of twigs of the cotton plant, from which depended numerous bolls.

Pansy was struggling with a lot of evergreen boughs, which she was trying
to crowd into a strange-looking receptacle.

"How do you like it, Miss Patty?" she asked, as Patty stood in the
doorway and gazed in.

"I like it very much, for you, Pansy," replied Patty. "If this is the
kind of room you want, I'm very glad for you to have it; only, I don't
know whether to call it 'First Course in Mineralogy,' or 'How to Tell the
Wild Flowers,'"

CHAPTER VIII

AN UNATTAINED AMBITION

To say that Boxley Hall was in readiness for the party would be stating
it very mildly. It was overflowing,--yes, fairly bursting with readiness.

New Year's day was on Thursday, and Patty had decreed that on that day
none of the Elliotts should go to Boxley Hall until they came as guests.

Dinner was to be at two o'clock, and in the morning Patty and her father
went over to their new home together.

"Just think, papa," said Patty, squeezing his hand as