December, this present month, you are to admit,--blushingly, if you
like, but unequivocally,--that I'm the one man in the world for you."

"Don't be too sure. Do you suppose I _can_ love a man who differs so
in opinion on this matter of--of psychology----"

"Yes, you blessed goose! You sure can! For, you see, this
poppycock,--I beg your pardon,--this poppychology is but a flash in the
pan, a rift in the lute, a fly in the ointment. Ahem, I'm getting
poetical now! Well, in a short space of period, you will have
forgotten all this rubbish,--er,--soul-rubbish, you know,--and you'll
be thinking only of how glad you are that you love me and I love
you,--just as Mona and Roger are, in these blissful days before their
marriage. Oh, Patty, you are going to marry me, aren't you, dear? I
can't stand it, if you say no."

Patty looked at him, and a troubled expression filled her blue eyes.

"I don't know, Philip. Honestly, I don't know. But it seems to me if
I am going to love you such a lot two weeks from now, I ought to care
more than I do now."

"Oh, that's all right, darling. It'll come all at once. Why, some
day, you'll suddenly discover you love me with every bit and corner of
your dear little blessed heart, and you'll wonder that you only just
realised it."

"I don't know, Philip. I hope it _will_ be like that--but I don't
know."

"Don't worry about it, dear, it will be all right," and Van Reypen
smiled into the anxious eyes upraised to his.

CHAPTER VI

A SOCIETY CIRCUS

"Of course I could do it," Patty agreed, "and I will, if you say so,
Elise. I don't care a lot about it, but if everybody is going in for
the game, I am, too."

"Yes, do, Patty; it's just in your line, and you can do it a whole lot
better than that girl did last year,--you know whom I mean, Ethel."

"Yes, Ray Rose----"

"Ray Rose," said Patty, "what a pretty name!"

"Pretty girl, too," said Ethel Merritt, who was calling at Pine Laurel.
"Also, she isn't going to like it any too well to have Miss Fairfield
take her part."

"Oh, is it her part?" asked Patty; "then I won't take it."

"Yes, you will. It's all right. Nobody wants her and everybody wants
you."

The subject under discussion was a "Society Circus" to be performed by
the young people of Lakewood, and of great interest to all concerned.

It was a few days after the Spring Beach trip. Mona had gone back home
and Philip also, and Roger was in New York. El