Although life at the Hurly-Burly was full of irritating incidents and even serious disappointments which were caused by the general forgetfulness and careless habits of the family, yet there were also many pleasures, and Patty enjoyed the summer very much and became warmly attached to her happy-go-lucky relatives.

Uncle Ted was kindness itself, and Aunt Grace was very loving and affectionate towards her motherless niece. Bob and Bumble were trumps, and Nan was so irresistibly funny that she made merry jokes of what would otherwise have been real troubles.

The days flew by and Patty thought she had never known a summer to pass so rapidly.

She almost lived out of doors, for Uncle Ted said he was determined to transform the little Boston bluestocking into a wild Indian; and so Patty had become browned by the sun, and her rowing and swimming had developed a fine amount of muscle. But as we are always more or less influenced by the character of those about us, Patty had also imbibed much of the spirit of the Hurly-Burly family and lived as if the pleasure of the present moment were the only thing to be considered.

"Be careful, my Patty," her father wrote to her, "you do not send me letters as regularly as you used to, and what you tell me sometimes sounds as if you thought it no harm to break a promise or to fail to keep an engagement you have made. You know I want you to learn by your experiences, and imitate only the best qualities of those about you. I'm not going to have my house run on any Hurly-Burly plan, Miss Pattikins, so if you expect to secure the position of housekeeper, you must be prepared to keep things right up to the mark. We will have an exact proportion of methodical regularity, without having so much of it that it will be a bugbear. Oh, I tell you, my lady, our home is going to be a veritable Paradise on earth, and I am impatient to get it started. You have only one more visit to make, and then I will come and kidnap my own daughter and carry her off with me for a Christmas present."

"What a dear, wise father I've got," mused Patty, after reading this letter, "and how he understands everything, even without my telling him. I will try not to grow heedless and rattle-pated, though it's hard to be any other way in this house."

One morning in August, Mrs. Barlow said to her husband, "Ted, you know the Carletons are coming this afternoon to stay several days, and I want you to go over to the three o'clock train to meet them. Don't forget it, will you? And you'll have to engage a stage to bring them over, for there'll be Mr. and Mrs. Carleton and four children, and perhaps a nurse. I don't know where we're going to put them all to sleep, but we must stow them away somehow. Patty, would you mind giving up your room for a time?"

"Not a bit, Aunt Grace. Put me wherever you like."

"That's a good girl. Well, suppose you sleep with Bumble. She has only a three-quarter bed, but if you don't quarrel you won't fall out."

"All right," said Patty. "I'll move my things at once."

"Very well, my dear; then we can give your room to Mr. and Mrs. Carleton, and Gertrude will have to room with Nan, and the other children must go up in the third story; no,—Harry can sleep with Bob. I declare I didn't think it would crowd us so, when I invited the whole family. But it will be only for a week, and we'll get along somehow."

"Many hands make light work," and with much flurrying and scurrying the rooms were made ready for the expected guests.

About noon the expressman came, bringing two trunks.

"'Coming events cast their shadows before,'" said Uncle Ted; "here come the wardrobes of the Carleton family."

"They must have sent them by express yesterday," said Aunt Grace; "dear me, how forehanded some people are. I wish I had been born that way. But when I go anywhere I take my trunk with me, and then I always leave it behind."

They all laughed at this paradoxical statement, and Uncle Ted said, "That's where you differ from an elephant." Then as the trunks were set out on the veranda, he exclaimed, "Good gracious, my dear, these aren't the Carleton's trunks. They're marked 'F. M. T.,'—both of them."

"'F.M.T.,'" echoed Mrs. Barlow, "why, who can that be?"

"The Carletons have borrowed other people's trunks to come with," suggested

Nan.

"Not they," returned Aunt Grace; "they're the most particular people on the face of the earth. Why Kate Carleton would as soon think of borrowing a house as a trunk. No, these belong to somebody else. And I know who it is! It's Fanny Todd. Before I left home I asked her to come down here the first week in August, and I never thought of it again from that day to this. But I should think she would have written."

"Why, mamma," said Bumble, "there was a letter came for you from Philadelphia a day or two ago. Didn't you get it? I saw it on the hall table."

"No, I didn't get it. Run and look for it, child."

But the letter couldn't be found. So Mrs. Barlow assumed that it was from her friend, Miss Todd, and concluded that that lady would shortly arrive.

"Where can we put her to sleep?" she queried, "every room is already filled."

"She can have my room," said Bob, "and Harry Carleton and I will sleep out in the tent. He's a good fellow and he won't mind."

"But his mother will," said Mrs. Barlow; "she's so fussy about such things. Still, I can't see anything else to do. If it doesn't rain, I suppose you'll be all right."

The Carletons came first, and Mrs. Barlow welcomed them with a gracious hospitality which gave no hint of the flurried turmoil of preparation that had been going on all day.

Gertrude Carleton, the eldest daughter, was one of those spick-and-span beings who look as if they ought always to be kept in a bandbox. She had a languishing die-away sort of air, and after a few moments' conversation with her, Bumble excused herself and slyly nudged Patty to come outside with her. She took her cousin up-stairs and said, "Patsy, I'm sure that blown-glass girl won't like to room with Nan. She looks as if she always had a whole suite of rooms to herself, parlor and all. I can imagine her fainting away when Nan takes off her wig. Now, how would it do to give Miss Gertrude our room, and you and I go in with Nan? I'll bunk on the sofa; I don't mind a bit."

"Neither do I," declared Patty. "Yes, let's give your room to the Lady

Gertrude, and never mind asking Nan about it, either."

So the girls changed things around in short order, and then went down-stairs and conducted Gertrude to her room.

Aunt Grace gave a little surprised smile, but with her usual tact, said nothing.

Harry Carleton seemed to be a very nice boy, and he went off to the tent with Bob, in great glee, while the two little Carleton children and their nurse were installed in rooms on the third floor.

Before the guests had reappeared down-stairs, a carriage drove up to the veranda, and a lady and gentleman got out.

"Oh," thought Mrs. Barlow, as she went to greet them, "who has Fanny brought with her?"

"How do you do, Grace?" cried sprightly Miss Todd, "I've come, you see, though I didn't get the telegram I asked you to send me. And I brought Mr. Harris, as I said I would. I know you'll welcome him gladly after what I told you."

"Fanny," said Mrs. Barlow, deeming it best to make a clean breast of the matter, "I didn't get your letter. At least, they say it came, but somehow it was lost before I read it, and it can't be found. However, it doesn't matter, and I am very glad to welcome Mr. Harris in any capacity."

"Then greet me as Miss Todd's future husband," said Mr. Harris, smiling, and Mrs. Barlow gave him a hearty welcome and congratulations at the same time.

But Mr. Harris was a new problem. Although he intended to remain only one night, yet a room must be provided for him, and poor Mrs. Barlow was at her wits' end.

But it was at her wits' end that the good lady oftenest found a way out of her difficulties, and after a glance into Mr. Harris' merry blue eyes, she felt sure she could ask him to sleep on the couch in the music-room without offending his dignity in the least. And so it turned out that the Hurly-Burly was filled with guests, and it goes without saying that they all had a merry time.

Uncle Ted was in his element, and he provided fun for the children and entertainment for the older guests, until even languid Gertrude was stirred to enthusiasm.

It was late when they all retired, and after Mrs. Barlow had insured the comfort of her guests and her children, she lay down to rest and fell asleep at once.

CHAPTER XVII
A HURLY-BURLY FIRE

Although Mr. Harris had expressed himself satisfied with his couch in the music-room, yet as it was hard and narrow, his slumbers were not very profound, and at two o'clock in the morning he awoke from a light doze, and began to sniff in the darkness.

"I believe I smell fire," he said to himself.

He jumped up and ran into the hall, where he found the whole staircase was a charred and smouldering mass ready to break into flame at any moment.

Mr. Harris was a man of quick action, but he paused a moment to consider.

He couldn't go up the stairs, they were ready to give way at a touch. He dared not open the front door, or, indeed, any door that might create a draught which would fan the stairs into a flame.

So he decided he must rouse the sleepers up-stairs, and then jump out of the music-room window and run to the tent to get the assistance of the two boys who were sleeping there.

Being a stranger in the house, he knew of no other stairway, and knew nothing of the servants or where they might be.

"Mr. Barlow,—fire! Mr. Barlow!" he screamed. "Fire! Mr. Carleton, Fanny!" but no one answered.

At last Patty was wakened by his voice and ran out in the upper hall. The draught of her opening door started the flames a little, and when she looked over the banister, it was into a well of fire.

Before she could say a word, Mr. Harris called up to her. "Patty," he said, "keep your senses, and help all you can. I think the fire is only in the staircase, and if so, we can get everybody safely out of their own windows. Tell this to your uncle, and then tell the others. I'm going after Bob."

Mr. Harris disappeared, and Patty bravely resisted her inclination to scream; instead, she ran into her uncle's room and shook him awake, saying, "Uncle Ted, the stairs are all burnt up, but it doesn't matter, you can get out of the windows."

Then she ran back and wakened Bumble and Nan, saying, "Girls, the house is on fire, but let's be real sensible and not get burned up. Put on your dressing-gowns, and then we must go and tell the ethers."

As she talked Patty was slipping on her dressing-gown, and then she caught up her mother's picture and wrapped it in a bath-towel, and with the little bundle in her hand she ran back to the hall where she met Uncle Ted.

"Which room are the Carletons in, Patty?" She told him, and then Bob shouted up from below, "We've got the old Babcock extinguisher, dad, and we're making it tell on the fire. Can't you throw on some water up there? And tell all the people to go out on the balconies and we'll take 'em down all right. And I say, Patty, get my camera out of my room, will you? I don't want anything to happen to that."

"All right," said Patty, and she ran for the camera. In Bob's room she found Miss Todd just waking up.

"Get up, Miss Todd," she cried; "the house is on fire and your Mr. Harris is putting it out, and he says for you to jump out of the window."

"Oh," screamed Miss Fanny, hopping out of bed and rushing wildly around the room, "which window?"

"Any window," said Patty, who was hunting in the closet for the camera.

So Miss Todd, half unconscious of what she was doing, but with a blind intention of obeying the orders of her fiancé, climbed over a window sill and jumped out.

As a veranda ran all around the second-story of the Hurly-Burly, she found herself standing just outside her window on a very substantial balcony and feeling decidedly chilly in the night air.

"Here are some clothes," said Patty, grabbing up whatever came handy, and putting them out the window to Miss Todd. "Is there anything you want saved particularly?"

For Patty had taken a pillow-case from its pillow, and in it had placed the bundle containing her mother's picture, and Bob's camera.

"Yes," said Miss Todd; "that book of poems,—it was Jim's first gift to me,—oh, and my hat."

"All right," said Patty, and she put the book in her pillow-case bag, but the hat, being large and feathery she put on her head.

Then Patty went to Gertrude Carleton's room. She found that fragile bit of humanity sleeping peacefully, and she hated to startle her.

But the excitement was growing greater. People were running about in all directions, and the flames, though still confined to the staircase, were liable to spread further at any moment. So Patty decided to break the news gently to the frail Gertrude, and she touched her softly on the shoulder.

"Gertrude, dear," she said, "if the house should get on fire, what would you want to save most?"

"My shoes," said Gertrude, promptly, awake and alert in an instant. "Here they are."

She reached over the side of the bed, and grasped her dainty little patent-leather boots, which she gave to Patty.

"Very well," said Patty, putting them in her bag, "and now you'd better get up and dress, for the house may get on fire to-night. Come, I'll help you, for I smell smoke now."

"Where are you going with your hat on?" asked Gertrude, much bewildered, but still making an expeditious toilette.

"Nowhere," said Patty. "I'm collecting valuables; this is Miss Todd's hat. I must go now. When you're ready, step out of your window on to the balcony, and they'll take you down by ladders or something, I guess."

Patty went out into the hall, and found that the fire was partly under control. Uncle Ted and Mr. Carleton were pouring buckets of water on it, which they brought from the bathroom where Bumble was helping fill the buckets.

Down-stairs, Mr. Harris and the two boys were using hand grenades, an old fire extinguisher, and sundry other patented means of putting out fires. There was much yelling of orders going on, but very little obeying of the same, and each man seemed to be working with a will in his own way.

Patty went into her Aunt Grace's room, and found that lady dressed in her best attire.

"I thought I'd put on this gown," she said. "Ted says we'll all be saved; but then you never can tell how a fire may break out somewhere else and burn up all your wardrobe. So I'll have this, anyway, and it's my best gown. Ted told me to stay in this room and not move until he came after me. Is the fire burning the hall carpet much?"

"Yes, quite a good deal; but they've spilled so much water on it that it's all wet, and I reckon that will spoil it more than the fire. But, Aunt Grace, what do you want to save? The house may all burn up, you know, and I'm trying to save the most valuable things. I've this pillow-case nearly full, now."

"Oh, what a good idea! Well, I wish you'd put in that photograph album, and my set of coral jewelry, and my eye-glasses; and please get the box of old letters that's on the highest shelf in that cupboard. Oh, and here's Uncle Ted's bank-book, we must save that."

"Now, Grace," said Uncle Ted, himself, appearing in the doorway, "the fire is pretty well under control; that Harris is a good fellow, and no mistake. But as the flames may break out again, I mean to put you out of harm's way at once. Come out on the balcony."

Uncle Ted had a great coil of rope in his arms, and he stepped through the long French window onto the balcony, and Aunt Grace and Patty followed. There they discovered quite a party already assembled, and such costumes as they wore!

Mrs. Carleton had on Turkish bedroom slippers, and she wore a black veil tied over her face for fear of smoke. She had wrapped herself in a large eider-down quilt and somebody had tied it round with a wide sash, so that she looked like a queer foreign personage of some sort.

Nan, in her hurry, had fastened her wig on insecurely, and had since lost it. Her attire was an old ulster of Uncle Ted's, which she had found in the third story hall when she ran up to alarm the Carleton children and their nurse.

The nurse in great fright had pulled down portières, and wrapped them round herself and the children, while old Hopalong had shuffled down from her room in a mackintosh and sun-bonnet.

To this motley crowd came Aunt Grace in her handsome party gown, and Patty with her bag of treasures.

"Hello, there," cried Uncle Ted, cheerily, "the danger is over, I think, but we have no stairs left to descend upon. The boys are bringing ladders, however, and I think, with care, we can all get down safely. But as my wife's sprained ankle is scarcely sound enough as yet to trust her on a ladder, I am going to try to swing her down in this hammock. Patty, I think I'll send you down first, for practice."

"All right, Uncle Ted," said Patty, and still clasping her bag of valuables, and wearing Miss Todd's Paris hat, she seated herself in the hammock, exactly according to Uncle Ted's directions, and he and Mr. Carleton carefully let her down by the long ropes which had been fastened at each end of the novel elevator.

Mr. Harris was waiting for her, and he landed her safely on the steps of the lower veranda.

Next Aunt Grace was lowered, and after that another hammock was rigged, and all of the ladies were taken down that way, as they preferred it to the ladders.

The men came down the ladders and brought the little children in their arms, and then the queer-looking crowd gathered in the sitting-room to discuss the situation. The men concluded that the fire was occasioned by a mouse having nibbled at some matches which were kept in the closet under the stairs.

As the shelves and walls and most of the contents of the closet were charred, it was assumed that the fire had been smouldering for some hours, and if Mr. Harris had not discovered it as soon as he did, it would doubtless have been followed by more disastrous consequences.

The stairs from the first to the second floor were entirely burned away, and except that the walls and carpets of both halls were smoked and discolored, no other harm was done.

But as that staircase was the only one connecting the first and second floors, the victims of the fire found themselves in the peculiar position of not being able to go up-stairs.

"How perfectly ridiculous," exclaimed Aunt Grace, "to build a house with no back stairs. I always said that was the greatest flaw about this house. What can we do?"

"As it is nearly five o'clock," said Uncle Ted, "I propose that we have breakfast, and consider that the day has begun. Then perhaps I can get somebody to build stairs or steps of some kind by night."

"But we must go up-stairs," said Nan, who had covered her wigless head with a bandanna kerchief, bound round like a turban; "we want to dress properly before we breakfast."

"And we want to finish our sleep," said Gertrude Carleton. "I'm not going to get up at five o'clock and stay up."

So the ladders were brought in from outside and put up in the stair-well, and with some difficulty everybody was brought safely up-stairs again.

With the procrastination which was characteristic of the Barlow household, the new stairs failed to get built that day or the next either; indeed it was nearly a week before a staircase was put in place, and as it was meant to be only temporary it was made of plain unpainted wood.

But you will not be surprised to learn that it was not replaced by a more sightly affair until after the Barlows had returned to their city home.

As the end of her visit at the Hurly-Burly drew near, Patty felt great regret at the thought of leaving the merry, careless crowd. She invited them, one and all, to visit her when she should be established in her own home, and she promised to correspond regularly with both Bumble and Nan.

"Where is it you're going?" said Bumble, "I never can remember."

"To Vernondale," answered Patty, "a town in New Jersey. But it's nowhere near Elmbridge, where I visited the St. Clairs. I believe it is on another railroad. I've had a lovely letter from Aunt Alice Elliott, and she wants me to come the first week in September. She says Uncle Charlie will meet me in New York, or come over here after me, whichever I say. But I think I'd better meet him in New York."

So when the day came Uncle Ted took Patty over to New York, and Bob and Bumble and Nan went too, and it was a group of very long-faced young people who met Mr. Elliott at the appointed time and place. But Bob said:

"Brace up, girls, we're not losing our Patty forever. She'll spend next summer with us at the Hurly-Burly, and by that time well have beautiful new fire-proof stairs."

"Yes," said Bumble, "and she can visit us in Philadelphia in the winter too."

Then after many fond good-byes, the Barlows went away, and Patty was left with her Uncle Charlie.