Aunt Patty's Paying Guests by Eglanton Thorne

WHEN Thursday came I could see that Aunt Patty looked forward with some nervousness to the arrival of her guest. Everything was in readiness. The Professor would be hard to please if he did not like the pleasant room, to which aunt had added a bookcase and a writing-table, and contrived to give quite the appearance of a sitting-room.

"Will he care for any flowers, do you think, Nan? " aunt asked, as we put the finishing touches to its arrangement.

"Not if he is like the Vicar," I replied.

"He may surely have scholarly habits without being exactly like Mr. Upsher," aunt said with a smile. "I should put a few if I were you. A room looks so bare and unhomelike without them."

So I went into the garden and picked half-a-dozen of the lovely daffodils, which by this time had opened more freely, and put them, with some of their lance-like leaves, in a tall, slender vase which I placed on the Professor's writing-table.

I had been in the woods that morning and had brought home some of the first primroses, smelling so freshly of their mother Earth. Pleased with the effect of the daffodils, I brought a little bowl which I had filled with primroses resting amid tiny sprays of ivy, and stood it on the top of the low bookcase.

"The room does look nice," I said to myself then, "almost too nice for a dry old professor. " I gave the fire a stir and went away to change my dress, for we did not expect our visitor till close upon dinner-time. He was coming by the six o'clock train, and Jack had volunteered to meet him and bring him to "Gay Bowers."

I made my toilet carefully enough to satisfy even Olive. The pretty evening blouse I wore, with transparent yoke and sleeves, was her handiwork, and I had the satisfaction of knowing that I looked well in it. My chestnut-brown hair, which Olive thought pretty, was deftly coiled, and I observed with some pleasure how well it contrasted with my black dress, yet I am certain that no idea of pleasing Professor Faulkner's eye ever crossed my mind. I never imagined that his mighty intellect could bend to observe the details of a girl's dress.

When I went downstairs I found Aunt Patty reading a letter, from which she looked up with an eager, excited countenance.

"The Vicar has been in," she said; "he came from Chelmsford and brought me this letter. When he was at the post-office on his own account, he thought he might as well ask if there were any letters for 'Gay Bowers."

"You don't mean it! " I exclaimed. "Really I should never have expected him to be so thoughtful."

"You are too hard on Mr. Upsher, Nan," said Aunt Patty. "I know he is often dreamy and absent-minded; but when there is a strong necessity for action, or real trouble anywhere, no one can be more kind and helpful."

"I am glad to hear it," I said. "But, auntie, the letter? It is surely not another application?"

"It is," she said, smiling, "and from an American gentleman! His name is Josiah Dicks, and he wants to know if I can accommodate him and his daughter, or rather, he calmly announces that they are coming here on Saturday, hoping to find that I can take them in. If not, he supposes they can put up at the village inn!"

"The village inn! " I exclaimed with a laugh. "That is hardly the place to suit a rich American; but, of course, there is a good hotel at Chelmsford. Is he rich, though?"

"I should imagine so," said my aunt, "since he says that he and his daughter have been 'all over Europe,' and now want to see a little of English rural life. It seems too that he is somewhat of an invalid and country air has been prescribed for him."

"How strange! " I exclaimed. "Gay Bowers' seems about to be turned into a convalescent home. But I suppose the daughter is not an invalid. I shall be glad to have a girl here, if she is nice."

"The ways of American girls do not, I believe, always accord with English notions of what is becoming," said my aunt; "but I cannot speak from personal experience."

"Nor can I," was my reply. "I have never known an American girl intimately. Well, I hope they may prove desirable, for Mr. Josiah Dicks and his daughter would be a set-off to the Professor."

"You seem to be making rather a bugbear of that Professor, Nan," said my aunt.