"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.