He saw a slender, graceful girl, a Southern blonde of the purest type. Her pretty golden hair would gladly have hung in curly masses, but it was only allowed to have its own sweet will around her temples and at the end of a long thick braid. Her eyes were blue, deep and twinkly, and the rest of her face was as pretty and sweet as soft girlish contours and a perfect complexion could make it.

But best of all was the gentle expression and frank, good-natured smile which so often broke into mischievous dimples.

It did on this occasion, and Patty laughed merrily at her father's grave consideration of her.

"What is it, papa?" she asked. "Did you think I was still an infant, and were you going to buy me a new dolls' house? Or were you going to take me to the circus? I'm not a bit too old for the circus."

"Aren't you? Then I will take you, but what is on my mind at present is a much more serious matter. Sit down again, Puss, and I'll tell you all about it.

"You know for years I've looked forward to the time when you should grow up to be old enough to keep house for me. And I thought then we'd go back North and settle down among my people and your mother's relatives. I haven't been North since your mother died, but now I want to go, and I want you to spend the rest of your life there. In many ways it will be better for you than Virginia. You will have more advantages; your life will be broader and more varied. Now I can't be ready to leave here for good in less than a year; I want to sell out my lumber interests and settle up my business affairs.

"But I am continually receiving letters from your aunts,—you have lots of aunts, Patty,—and they are apparently all anxious that you shall visit them. So, if you consent, this is my plan. You've never traveled any, have you, Puss?"

"Never been out of Virginia in my life, papa."

"No? Well, you ought to see a little of how the rest of the world lives and moves. So I think I'll let you visit in the North for a year,—say three months with each of your four aunts,—and then next fall I'll be ready to join you, and we'll buy a house and you shall be mistress of it."

"A home of our own? Oh, papa, I'd like that lots!"

"Yes, so would I. As we have always lived in boarding-houses since your mother's death, you've had no opportunity to learn the details of housekeeping, and these four visits will show you four very distinct types of families."

"Why, are my aunts all so different, papa?"

"Indeed they are, and though I hope you can make yourself happy with each one, yet you will find life very different in the various homes."

"Tell me about them, papa," said Patty, contentedly settling herself back among the cushions of the couch, for she dearly loved a long talk with her father.

"Well, you will go first to the St. Clairs. You remember Uncle Robert, your mother's brother, who was here four or five years ago, don't you?"

"Indeed I do; he brought me a French doll nearly as big as I was then myself,—and a whole five-pound box of candy. He is a lovely man. But I've never seen Aunt Isabel or the children,—only their photographs."

"Your Aunt Isabel is,—but no,—I won't tell you anything about your relatives. You may discover their faults and virtues for yourself. Most of all, my child, you will need to cultivate your sense of proportion. Do you know what proportion means?"

"Oh, yes, papa, I studied 'ratio and proportion' in arithmetic."

"Not that kind," said her father, smiling; "I mean a proportion of human interests, of amusements or occupations. I wonder if you are too young to understand."

"No, I'm not too young to understand anything," said Patty, fairly blinking in her endeavor to look as wise as an owl.

"Well, then, listen while I put it this way. Suppose you were to make a cake, an ordinary sized cake, you know, how much yeast would you put in it?"

"Not any, papa," said Patty, laughing merrily. "I know enough housekeeping not to put yeast in a cake. I'd use baking-powder."

"Yes," said her father, quite undisturbed, "that is what I meant,—baking-powder. Now how much of it would you use?"

"Well, about two teaspoonfuls," said Patty, feeling very important and housewifely.

"Yes. Now suppose instead of two teaspoonfuls you put in two cupfuls."

"Why then I wouldn't have any cake at all! I reckon it would rise right up the chimney and run down on the roof outside."

"Well, that shows just what I mean. There'd be a too great proportion of baking-powder, wouldn't there?"

"Indeed there would," assented Patty, much interested in the conversation, but a little bewildered.

"To try again," her father continued, "suppose your frock was so covered by trimming that the material could scarcely be seen at all."

"Then," said Patty, who was rapidly learning her lesson, "then there'd be too great a proportion of trimming for the frock."

"Ah," said her father, "you begin to see my drift, do you? And if you had all tables in your house, and no chairs or bedsteads or bureaus, there'd be too great a proportion of tables, wouldn't there?"

"Yes; and I perceive," said Patty, slowly and with mock gravity, "that proportion means to have too many of one thing, when you'd better have a lot of others."

"No, you're all wrong! That is a lack of proportion. Proportion is to have exactly the right amount of each ingredient."

"Yes,—and what has all this to do with Aunt Isabel? Does she put too much baking-powder in her cake, or has she nothing but tables in her house?"

"Those, my dear, were only figures of speech. But if you're going to make a home for your old father next year, I want you to learn from observation what are the principal ingredients to put into it, and then learn to adjust the proportions."

"Papa, I believe I do know what you mean, but it's all out of proportion when you call yourself 'my old father,' for you're not old a bit. You're a beautiful young man, and I'm sure any one who didn't know us would take you for my brother."

"Come, come, Puss, you mustn't be so flattering, or I'll keep you here, and not let you go North at all; and I do believe you're just dying to go."

"I'd like it lots if you were going too. But to be away from you a whole year is no fun at all. Can't I wait until next fall and we'll go together?"

"No, Patsie; your aunts are urging me to let you visit them and I think the experiences will do you good. And beside, my plans for the next year are very uncertain. I may have to go to Bermuda to see about my plantation there,—and all things considered, I think you would be better off in the North. I shall miss you, of course, but a year soon slips away, you know, and it will fly very quickly for you, as you will be highly entertained with your new experiences."

Now, Patty Fairfield was a philosophic little girl, so when she found that her father's mind was made up she accepted the situation and offered no objections of any kind. And, indeed the new plan was not without its charm. Although she knew none of her aunts, she knew a great deal about them, and their Northern homes seemed attractive to her in many ways.

"What about school, papa?" she said, finally.

"That will be left to the judgment of each aunt in turn. I think Aunt Isabel has a governess for her children, and Aunt Hester will probably teach you herself. But you will learn enough, and if not, you can consider it a year's vacation, and I'll put you back in school when I am with you again."

"Well," said Patty, meditatively, "I think it will be very nice, and I'll like it, but I'll be awful lonesome for you," and with a spring she jumped into her father's arms.

"Yes, of course, my baby, we'll be homesick for each other, but we'll be brave, and when we feel very lonesome, we'll sit down and write each other nice long letters."

"Oh, that will be fun, I love letters; and here comes Clara, may I tell her about it?"

"Yes, and tell her she must come to see me once in a while, and cheer me after I lose my own little girl."

Clara Hayden was Patty's intimate friend and both the girls' hearts grew sad at the thought of parting.

"But," said Patty, who was determined to look on the bright side, "after a year, papa and I will have a house of our own, and then you can come and make us a long, long visit. And we can write letters, Clara, and you must tell me all about the girls, and about school and about the Magnolia Club."

"Yes, I will; and you write to me about all you do at your aunts' houses.

Where do they live, Patty?"

"Well, I shall go first to Aunt Isabel's, and she lives in Elmbridge. That's in New Jersey, but it's quite near New York. Next I'm going to Aunt Hester's; she lives in Boston. Then I'm going to visit Aunt Grace. They live in Philadelphia, but I'll be with them in the summertime, and then they're at their country place somewhere on Long Island, wherever that may be. And the last one is Aunt Alice, and I forget the name of the town where she lives. Isn't it nice, Clara, to have so many aunts?"

"Yes, lovely! I suppose you'll go to New York often."

"I don't know; I think I'm afraid of New York. They say it's an awful dangerous place."

"Yes, it is. People get killed there all the time."

"Fiddlesticks! I don't believe they do. Well, I reckon I won't get killed.

Uncle Robert will take better care of me than that."

CHAPTER II
TRAVELING NORTH

As a result of many letters back and forth between Mr. Fairfield and the Northern aunts, Patty stood one morning on the platform of the railway station, all ready to depart for her new homes.

It was the first week in December, and the little girl shivered as she thought of the arctic cold to which she imagined herself going.

"Of course they'll meet me in a sleigh, won't they, papa?" she said.

"Perhaps so, but I doubt it," he replied. "They don't have such snowstorms in Jersey now as they used to when I was a boy. Last winter they had no sleighing at all. But here comes Miss Powers; let us go to greet her." Miss Powers was a sharp-faced lady who came marching along the platform with a firm step.

Patty was to travel in her care, not because she was an especially desirable traveling companion, but because she was the only acquaintance of the Fairfields who chanced to be going North at that time.

"Good-morning," she cried, "are you here already? I was certain you'd be late and miss the train. Not a very pleasant day, is it? I wish we had planned to go to-morrow instead. Why, Patty, you are wearing your best hat! You'll spoil it, I'm sure. Have you your trunk check? Give it to me, you'll certainly lose it else."

"Here it is, Miss Powers," said Mr. Fairfield, pleasantly, "and I dare say you will prove more responsible than my rattle-pated daughter."

He squeezed Patty's hand affectionately as he said this, and a great wave of homesickness came over the child's heart. She caught her father round the neck, and vainly trying to keep the tears back, she whispered,

"Oh, papa, dear, let me stay with you. I don't want to go to Aunt

Isabel's,—I know she's horrid, and I just want you, you, you!"

Miss Powers was shocked at this exhibition of emotion, and said with asperity:

"Come, come, it's too late to talk like that now. And a big girl like you ought to be ashamed to act so babyish."

But Mr. Fairfield kissed Patty tenderly and said: "Dear, we're going to be very brave, you know,—and besides, you're only going for a visit. All people go visiting at some time in their lives, and next December I'll be shaking the dust of Richmond off of my feet and coming after you, pell-mell." Patty smiled through her tears, and then the train came tooting along and they all climbed aboard.

As the train waited for ten minutes, Mr. Fairfield had ample time to find the seats engaged for the travelers, and to arrange their hand-luggage in the racks provided for it. Then he bade Miss Powers good-bye, and, turning to Patty, clasped her in his arms as he said:

"Pattykins, good-bye. The year will soon pass away, and then we'll have a jolly little home together. Be brave and gentle always, and as a parting gift I give you this little box which contains a talisman to help you bear any troubles or difficulties that may come to you."

As he spoke, he put into Patty's hand a small parcel sealed at each end with red sealing-wax.

"Don't open it now," he continued. "Keep it just as it is until you reach Aunt Isabel's. Then after you have gone to your room on the first night of your stay with her, open the box and see what is in it."

Then the warning whistle blew, and with a final embrace of his little daughter, Mr. Fairfield left the car.

The train started, and for a moment Patty saw her father waving his handkerchief, and then he was lost to her sight. She felt just like indulging in a good cry, but Miss Powers would have none of that.

The worthy spinster was already opening her bag and preparing to make herself comfortable for her journey.

"Now, Patty," she said, but not unkindly, "you've left your pa behind, and you're going away from him to stay a year. You've got to go, you can't help yourself, so you might just as well make the best of it, and be cheerful instead of miserable. So now that's settled, and you'd better get out your books and games or whatever you brought along to amuse yourself with."

Miss Powers had taken off her hat and gloves and arranged a small balsam pillow behind her head. She put on her glasses, and opened a book in which she at once became absorbed.

Patty, being thus left to her own devices, became much interested in the novelty of her surroundings. It was great fun to lean back against the high-cushioned seat and look out of the window at the trees and plantations and towns as they flew by. This kept her amused until noontime, when a waiter came through the car banging a gong.

Miss Powers shut her book with a snap, and announced that they would go to the dining-car for their lunch.

This was even more fun, for it seemed so queer to Patty to sit at a table and eat, while at the same time she was flying through the country at such break-neck speed.

"It's like the enchanted carpet, isn't it, Miss Powers?" she said, as they slid through a thick grove and then out into the sunshine again.

"What is? what carpet?" asked Miss Powers, looking down at the floor of the car.

"Oh, not a real carpet," said Patty, politely repressing a smile at the elder lady's ignorance of fairy-lore. "I mean, for us to go scooting along so fast is like the travelers on the magicians' carpet. Don't you know, the carpet would move of itself wherever he told it to."

"H'm," commented Miss Powers, "that would be a good kind of a carpet to have at housecleaning time, wouldn't it?"

This prosaic disposition of the magic carpet quite shocked Patty, but she adapted herself to the idea, and said, "Yes, indeed; you could just say, 'Carpet, get up and go out and hang yourself on the clothes-line, and then shake yourself well and come back again,'—oh, that would be convenient."

Miss Powers smiled in an absent-minded sort of way, and Patty chattered on, half to herself and half to her companion.

"But suppose the carpet should be naughty and refuse to go,—that wouldn't be so pleasant."

"Or suppose it should run away and never come back?"

This latter remark was made by a strange voice, and Patty looked up quickly to see the man who was seated opposite, smiling in a very friendly way.

He was an elderly gentleman with white hair and beard, and it seemed to Patty's vivid imagination that he looked like Noah, or some other of the ancient patriarchs.

"That would be a great joke on the housekeeper," Patty answered, feeling already well acquainted with the pleasant old gentleman, "and I suppose she would have to get a new carpet."

"Or have a hard-wood floor laid in her room," he responded.

"Or live on a bare floor," said Miss Powers. "I think it would be a very slack housekeeper who would let her carpets shake themselves, and she would probably be too lazy or too poor to replace the ones that ran away."

Mr. Noah, as Patty called the old man in her mind, laughed heartily at this, and during the rest of the luncheon hour proved himself a genial and entertaining companion.

The day passed quickly, and at bedtime Patty was quite tired enough to welcome the thought of tucking herself away in one of those queer-looking bunks that the porter was arranging.

"I'll sleep on the top shelf," she said, gleefully, "may I, Miss Powers?"

"I'll be very glad if you will, child,—I've no desire to climb up there.

Ugh, I don't think I can sleep anywhere on this bobbety-bobble train."

Then the porter brought a small step-ladder, and this delighted Patty beyond measure.

"Ho!" said she, "now I'm 'Jack and the Beanstalk.' 'A-hitchet, a-hatchet, a-up I go'!" and with two jumps and a spring she landed in the upper berth.

"Now," she said to herself, "I know how Alice felt when she grew so large that she filled up the whole room. Let me see, what did she do? She put one arm out the window and one foot up the chimney. Well, I can't do that, and I don't see any little cakes to eat, as she did, that will make me grow smaller, so I s'pose I'll just have to scrounch around till I'm ready for bed, and then slide in. I'm sure I shan't sleep, it's all so noisy and exciting."

But when she finally straightened herself out on the coarse, cinder-sprinkled linen of the Pullman, the chink-a-chunk of the train changed to a lullaby, and in about two minutes Patty was sound asleep.

CHAPTER III
NEW FRIENDS

It was about four o'clock the next afternoon when the train came puffing into the great train-shed in Jersey City.

It had passed through Elmbridge about an hour before, but being an express train, it made no stop at such small places.

So Mr. St. Clair had arranged to meet Patty at Jersey City and take her back home with him.

Patty recognized her uncle as soon as he entered the car, and ran to greet him.

"Howdy, Uncle Robert," she said, in her pretty southern way, "are you looking for me?"

"I am, if you're little Patty Fairfield. But you've grown so since I saw you that I think I shall have to ask for your credentials."

Patty laughed, and answered: "My credentials are that I remember the doll and the candy you brought me five years ago, and I just know you're my Uncle Robert."

"I am indeed, and I've come to carry you off to a lot of other admiring relatives."

Then Patty introduced Miss Powers, and after gathering up the various wraps and bags they all left the train. Miss Powers was to cross the ferry to New York, so Patty and Uncle Robert escorted her to the ferry-boat and bade her good-bye, with many thanks for her kind care of the little girl during the journey.

Then Uncle Robert said: "Now we'll go out to Elmbridge as quick as we can skip, but first we must pick up Ethelyn, whom I left in the waiting-room."

"Oh, is Ethelyn here?" cried Patty. "I am so glad, I'm just crazy to see her."

Apparently Ethelyn was crazy too, for she flew at her cousin as soon as she entered the door.

"You dear thing!" she exclaimed, "I'm so delighted to see you. Oh, how pretty you are! We'll be awfully good chums, won't we?"

"I'm sure we shall," replied Patty, who was just a wee bit frightened by this dashing young cousin.

Ethelyn was about Patty's age, but somewhat shorter and decidedly less slender. Her yellow hair was not long, indeed it was cut evenly round just above her shoulders, but it was crinkled and fluffed out until her head had the contour of a yellow pumpkin.

A huge black hat with a wide rolling brim was perched on top of the yellow mop, and ornamented with feathers and shining buckles.

Both the girls wore dark blue suits trimmed with fur, but Ethelyn's was resplendent with wide lace-trimmed collars, and she wore clattering bangles on her wrists, and a fancy little muff hung round her neck by a silver chain.

Her skirts were as short as Patty's, and she seemed like a little girl, and yet she had a wise, grown-up air, and she began to patronize her cousin at once.

"Your frock is nice," she said, "but it has no style to it. Well, I suppose you couldn't get much in the way of dressmakers where you lived, but Madame Marsala will soon turn you out all right. Mamma says she'll just enjoy ordering new clothes for you, and your papa told her to get whatever she chose. Oh, won't we have fun! We always go to New York for our things, and the shops are just lovely."

"Come, come, children," said Uncle Robert, who had been looking after

Patty's trunks, "the train is made up, let us get aboard."

They went through one of a whole row of little gates in an iron fence, and Patty wondered at the numerous trains and the crowds of people moving swiftly towards them.

She wondered if everything at the North were conducted on such a wholesale and such a hurrying plan. They hurried along the platform and hurried into a car, then Uncle Robert put the two children into a seat together, while he sat behind them and devoted himself to his evening paper.

The girls chatted gaily and Patty learned much about the home she was going to, and began to think of it as a very beautiful and attractive place.

The train stopped at Elmbridge, and without waiting for her father, Ethelyn piloted Patty off the car.

"Here's our carriage," she said, as a handsome pair of horses with jingling chains came prancing up. A footman in livery handed the young ladies in, and Patty felt as if she had come among very grand people indeed.

While they waited for Mr. St. Clair, who was giving the checks to the baggage-master, Patty admired the pretty little station of rough gray stone, and the neatly kept grounds and paths all about it.

"Yes, they are pretty," assented Ethelyn, "but just wait till you see our grounds. We have the finest place in Elmbridge. In summer it's just lovely."

Then Mr. St. Clair came, and giving the coachman the order "Home," he seated himself opposite the two girls.

"Well, Patty, how do you like it, so far?" he asked, genially, of his niece.

"Oh, Uncle Robert, I think it's beautiful, but I hoped we'd have a sleigh-ride. I've never been in a sleigh."

"Bless you, child, we don't have much sleighing. However, perhaps we can scare up a sleigh-ride before the winter is over. We have a pretty fine sleigh, eh, Ethelyn?"

"Yes, indeed, we have a beautiful great big one, and I have a little cutter, all my own. I'll take you sleighing, Patty, if we get half a chance."

Soon they reached the St. Clair home and drove up the long winding avenue to the house.

Patty saw a brilliantly lighted mansion, and as they drew near it, she heard the most piercing shrieks and yells, as of a human being in desperate straits of some kind.

Patty wondered if she were about to enter a Bluebeard's castle, but deeming it polite to take no notice of the uproar, she tried to appear unheeding though the shrieks increased in violence as they came up to the house and the carriage stopped at the front door.