rd about your resting, while you're here. But
you're--really,--you're so improved since you came, that I want to
complete the cure. Scoot off, now, and then at five o'clock Jim will
be back, and we'll have lots of fun."

"It's nearly half-past two, now. Well, I don't see much else to do, so
I'll go. But remember, it's the last of this foolishness."

"I'll remember. Run along now, and don't show your face below stairs
till five. Cross your heart?"

"Yep. Cross my heart and hope to never! By-by."

Patty ran upstairs and closed her room door behind her. Never really
at a loss to entertain herself, she read some magazines, wrote two or
three letters that had been long owing, and then mooned around looking
out of her windows at the distant hills, bright with winter sunshine.
She opened the long French window to the balcony and stepped out. It
was snappily cold, so she went back long enough to catch up a wrap.
The apple blossom kimono was the first thing she saw, so she slipped
into it, and went out on the balcony. The bracing air was delightful,
and she walked up and down, drawing long deep breaths of ozone. There
was a low railing round the little balcony and Patty sat down on it.
The ground was only about eight feet below her, for the house was built
on a side hill, and the slope was abrupt.

"I could almost lean down and pick violets," she mused, "if there were
any to pick. But it's nowhere near spring, yet."

She drew her wrap more closely about her and rose to go in the house
again.

"Well!" came in an explosive voice, just below her. Patty looked down
and saw Farnsworth standing there, his face radiant with glad surprise.

"Little Billee!" she exclaimed, impulsively leaning over the rail.
"What are you here for?"

"_You_! And I can't wait another minute! _Jump_!"

Not pausing to think, impelled by his quick command, Patty stepped over
the rail and jumped.

Farnsworth caught her deftly in his arms just as her feet touched the
ground, and held her there.

"Look at me," he said, and his always musical voice had a ring in it
Patty had never heard before.

The golden head, bowed against his broad chest, lifted a little, and
Patty's blue eyes shone into his own. Steadily he looked for a moment,
and then said, quietly, but exultantly, "You love me! Oh, my Patty
Blossom!"

Patty stood very still. It seemed to her that the end of the world had
come--or the beginning,--she wasn't sure which.