Aunt Patty's Paying Guests by Eglanton Thorne

"IT is a restless age," observed Colonel Hyde the next morning, as with the utmost precision and deliberation, he opened his egg. "My godson was in London yesterday, yet he must be off to town again by the first train this morning. Then he talks of joining a party of friends who are going to Norway next week for some fishing."

Aunt Patty and I glanced at each other. Fishing might effect a cure as well as hunting.

"He needs and deserves a holiday after working so well," my aunt said. "He has been at home a great deal of late."

"His father has not had much of his company," remarked the colonel. "Jack has been going up to London continually, and whatever leisure he had he spent here."

"Does the vicar complain that he has too little of his son's society? " inquired Aunt Patty. "It always seems to me that he prefers the company of his books, since Jack and he have so little in common. But he must be very pleased that Jack has passed his exam."

"Has he passed? " exclaimed Miss Cottrell eagerly. "When did you hear? Why did no one tell me?"

It was not quite easy to answer the latter question. I trembled lest Miss Cottrell with her talent for investigation should discover why Jack had become suddenly desirous of change of scene. Happily she was just then too absorbed in anticipating the return of her fiancé to devote much attention to the affairs of others.

They were expected to arrive in time for afternoon tea. I watched Miss Cottrell drive off, radiant with satisfaction, to meet them at the station, then I took a book and seated myself amid the flowers in my favourite nook on the top of the porch. It was a warm afternoon, no breeze reached me where I sat, and the air was heavy with the perfume of the roses and jasmine that grew about the porch. Bees were buzzing about me, and now and then a white butterfly would flit past my book. It was a book on Goethe which Alan Faulkner had advised me to read and which father had procured for me from a London library. I was truly interested in it, yet I found it hard to fix my attention on its pages this afternoon. The sweet summer atmosphere and the stillness, broken only by the hum of insect life, made me drowsy. My book dropped, my head sank sideways, and I passed into a pleasant dream.

I was wandering through a wood with Alan Faulkner beside me when the stir and bustle of arrival below roused me to consciousness of my actual surroundings. How long I had been sleeping I could not tell, but the wagonette stood before the house, and as I sprang up and rubbed my eyes, I heard Paulina's high, thin American tones calling for "Nan. " I ran down and we met at the foot of the stairs.

"Nan-you dear old Nan! Why weren't you on the doorstep to welcome me? " cried Paulina as she threw her arms round me. "Come, you need not be afraid to kiss me! I am warranted perfectly harmless."

"That's more than I'd warrant you, Pollie Dicks," came as an aside from her father.

"Indeed, I am not afraid," I responded, a little surprised at the fervour of her embrace, "and I'm very glad you've come back."

"That's right. I can't tell you how good it feels to be at 'Gay Bowers' again! " cried Paulina gleefully. "But say, Nan, what's the matter with you? I declare you've been sleeping! You lazy thing! It's time I came back to wake you up."

"She'll rouse you all-you may trust Pollie Dicks for that! " cried her father, rubbing his hands, while Miss Cottrell hovered near him, looking absurdly self-conscious. "Say, doesn't she look as if scarlet fever agreed with her?"

She certainly did. I had expected to see her looking thin and pale and languid, but it was not so. She had put on flesh in her convalescence, and the sea air had given her a more ruddy hue than I had yet seen her wear. She appeared to be in robust health, and was undoubtedly in excellent spirits. I need not have been anxious on the score of her happiness.

"If you mention scarlet fever again, I'll fine you a thousand pounds! " she cried, turning on her father. "I don't want to hear the name again, do you understand? All the same, Nan," she added, turning to me, "it is not half bad having a fever. It is good for the complexion. It rejuvenates you altogether, I guess. You'll be sorry one of these days that you haven't had it. Anyway, I've had a jolly time for the last fortnight, with nothing to do save eat and drink and take mine ease."

"You have changed if you have grown fond of repose," I said, as we went upstairs.

"Ah, Nan! Sharp-tongued as ever! " she replied. "I know you thought me a terrible gadabout, and I certainly never went to sleep in the middle of the day like some one I know. But you must have been deadly dull without me, and your cousin gone too, and the Professor. What a miserable little party you must have been here!"

"We have managed to bear up somehow," I said, smiling; "but it is good to have you here again, Paulina."

I spoke in all sincerity. I had not taken readily to Paulina Dicks. Her odd, American ways had jarred on me when first she came. I had not realised how much I liked her, or how I missed her, till now that her eager, vivid personality once more made a pleasant stir in the house. I think I laughed more in the first half-hour after her arrival than I had laughed during the whole of her absence. A cheerful disposition wields a potent charm.