Martha, refusing to commit herself. “It will take something very amazing indeed to impress me.” [58] [58] CHAPTER VI THE BEGINNING OF ADVENTURE THE BEGINNING OF ADVENTURE “The time has come, O Wayfarers, to think of many things,” gaily declaimed Patsy, bursting into the somber, high-ceilinged, dark-paneled sitting-room where Miss Martha, Beatrice, Mabel and Eleanor sat around a massive mahogany table, busily engaged in writing letters. “Go away, Patsy,” laughingly admonished Mabel, pen suspended in mid-air over her note paper. “You’re a disturber. You’ve made me forget what I was going to write next. If you won’t be a letter-writer, don’t be a nuisance.” “I can’t be what I never have been and could never possibly become,” retorted Patsy. “I’ll promise to keep quiet, though, if you’ll all hustle and finish your letters. I’m dying to go over to the orange groves and it’s no fun going alone. Any old person will do for company.” [59] [59] “Then we won’t do,” emphasized Beatrice. “We are very distinguished persons who don’t belong in the ‘any old’ class.” “Glad you told me,” chuckled Patsy. “I’ll give you ten minutes to wind up your letters. If you’re not done then—well—I’ll give you ten more. I am always considerate. I’m going to leave you now, but I shall return. I’ll come buzzing around again, like a pestiferous fly, in exactly ten minutes by my wrist watch. I’m only going as far as the gallery to pay my respects to the dead and gone Feredas.” With this announcement Patsy turned and strolled from the room. The gallery to which she referred was in the nature of a short corridor, extending between the second-floor sitting-room and ending at the corridor on which were situated sleeping rooms which the Wayfarers occupied. It had evidently served as a picture gallery for several generations of Feredas. Its walls were lined with a heterogeneous collection of oil paintings, largely landscape and
Prev.
Back
Top