"I don't know just what coach means, but I'm sure Kenneth can do it, he's a very clever boy; he says he can run an automobile, but I don't believe it. Run away home now, child, I'm tired of having company; and besides I want to compose my mind so I can write a letter to Kenneth."

"And will you leave your blinds open till afternoon?" said Patty, who was beginning to learn her queer old neighbour.

"Yes, I will, if I don't forget it. Clear out, child, clear out now; run away home and mind you're not to borrow anything and you're not to come back till I send for you."

"All right," said Patty. "Good-bye, and mind, you're to keep bright and cheerful, and let the sunlight in all the time."

CHAPTER XV

BILLS

Patty's plans for systematic housekeeping included a number of small Russia-leather account books, and she looked forward with some eagerness to the time when the first month's bills should come in, and she could present to her father a neat and accurate statement of the household expenses for the month.

The 1st of February was Sunday, but on Monday morning the postman brought a sheaf of letters which were evidently bills.

Patty had no time to look at these before she went to school, so she placed them carefully in her desk, determined to hurry home that afternoon and get her accounts into apple-pie order before her father came home. After school she returned to find a supplementary lot of bills had been left by the postman, and also Mancy presented her with a number of bills which the tradesmen had left that morning.

Patty took the whole lot to her desk, and with methodical exactness noted the amounts on the pages of her little books. She and her father had talked the matter over, more or less, and Patty knew just about what Mr.

Fairfield expected the bills to amount to.

But to her consternation she discovered, as she went along, that each bill was proving to be about twice as large as she had antic.i.p.ated.

"There must be some mistake," she said to herself, "we simply _can't_ have eaten all those groceries. Anybody would think we ran a branch store. And that butcher's bill is big enough for the Central Park menagerie! They must have added it wrong."

But a careful verification of the figures proved that they were added right, and Patty's heart began to sink as she looked at the enormous sum-totals.

"To think of all that for flowers! Well, papa bought some of them, that's a comfort; but I had no idea I had ordered so many myself. I think bills are perfectly horrid! And here's my dressmaker's bill. Gracious, how Madame LaFayette has gone up in her prices! I believe I'll make my own clothes after this; but the market bills are the worst I don't see how we _could_ have eaten all these things. Mancy must be a dreadful waster, but it isn't fair to blame her; if that's where the trouble is, I ought to have looked after it myself. h.e.l.lo, Marian, is that you? I didn't hear you come in. Do come here, I'm in the depths of despair!"

"What's the matter, Patsie? and what a furious lot of bills! You look like a clearinghouse."

"Oh, Marian, it's perfectly fearful! Every bill is two or three times as much as I thought it would be, and I'm so sorry, for I meant to be such a thrifty housekeeper."

"Jiminetty Christmas!" exclaimed Marian, looking at some of the papers, "I should think these bills _were_ big! Why, that's more than we pay a month for groceries, and look at the size of our family."

"I know it," said Patty hopelessly. "I don't see how it happened."

"You are an extravagant little wretch, Patty, there's no doubt about it."

"I suppose I am; at least, I suppose I have been, but I'm not going to be any more. I'm going to reform, suddenly and all at once and very thoroughly! Now, you watch me. We're not going to have any more fancy things, no more ice cream from Pacetti's. Why, that caterer's bill is something fearful."

"And so you're going to starve poor Uncle Fred?"

"No, that wouldn't be fair, would it? The economy ought to fall entirely on me. Well, I've decided to make my own clothes after this, anyway."

"Oh, Patty, what a goose you are! You couldn't make them to save your neck, and after you made them you couldn't wear them."

"I could, too, Marian Elliott! Just you wait and see me make my summer dresses. I'm going to sew all through vacation."

"All right," said Marian, "I'll come over and help you, but you can't make any dresses this afternoon, so put away those old bills and get ready for a sleigh ride. It's lovely out, and father said he'd call for us here at four o'clock."

"All right, I will, if we can get back by six. I want to be here when papa comes home."

"Yes, we'll be back by six. I expect Uncle Fred will shut you up in a dark room and keep you on bread and water for a week when he sees those bills."

"That's just the worst of it," said Patty forlornly. "He's so good and kind, and spoils me so dreadfully that it makes me feel all the worse when I don't do things right."

A good long sleigh ride in the fresh, crisp winter air quite revived Patty's despondent spirits. She sat in front with Uncle Charley, and he let her drive part of the way, for it was Patty's great delight to drive two horses, and she had already become a fairly accomplished little horsewoman.

"Fred tells me he's going to get horses for you this spring," said Uncle Charley. "You'll enjoy them a lot, won't you, Patty?"

"Yes, indeed--that is--I don't know whether we'll have them or not."

For it just occurred to Patty that, having run her father into such unexpected expense in the household, a good way to economise would be to give up all hopes of horses.

"Oh, yes, you'll have them all right," said Uncle Charley, in his gay, cheery way, having no idea, of course, what was in Patty's mind. "And you must have a little pony and cart of your own. It would give you a great deal of pleasure to go out driving in the spring weather."

"I just guess it would," said Patty, "and I'm sure I hope I'll have it."

She began to wonder if she couldn't find some other way to economise rather than on the horses, for she certainly did love to drive.

Promptly at six o'clock Uncle Charley left her at Boxley Hall, and as she entered the door Patty felt that strange sinking of the heart that always accompanies the resuming of a half-forgotten mental burden.

"I know just how thieves and defaulters and forgers feel," she said to herself, as she took off her wraps. "I haven't exactly stolen, but I've betrayed a trust, and that's just as bad. I wonder what papa will say?"

At dinner Patty was subdued and a little nervous.

Mr. Fairfield, quick to notice anything unusual in his daughter, surmised that she was bothered, but felt sure that in her own time she would tell him all about it, so he endeavoured to set her at her ease by chatting pleasantly about the events of his day in the city, and sustaining the burden of the conversation himself.

But after dinner, when they had gone into the library, as they usually did in the evening, Patty brought out her fearful array of paper bugbears and laid them before her father.

"What are these?" said Mr. Fairfield cheerily. "Ah, yes, I see. The 1st of the month has brought its usual crop of bills."

"I do hope it isn't the usual crop, papa; for if they always come in like this, we'll have to give up Boxley Hall and go to live in the poor-house."

"Oh, I don't know. We haven't overdrawn our bank account yet Whew!

Pacetti's is a stunner, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Patty, in a meek little voice.

"And Fisher & Co. seem to have summed up quite a total; and Smith's flower bill looks like a good old summer time."

"Oh, papa, please scold me; I know I deserve it. I ought to have looked after these things and kept the expenses down more."

"Why ought you to have done so, Patty? We have to have food, don't we?"