"I don't care how I go," said Patty, "or what I go in. I'm so amiable, a child can play with me to-day. I'll go in a wheelbarrow, if necessary." "I had hoped to drive you over myself," said Mr. Hepworth, who sat next to her, speaking in a low tone; "but I'll push you in a wheelbarrow, if you prefer." "You go with me, Patty, in one of the traps, won't you?" said Kenneth, who sat on the veranda railing at her other side. Patty's face took on a comical smile of amusement at these two requests, but she answered both at once by merrily saying: "Then it all adjusts itself. Mr. and Mrs. Allen and Mr. and Mrs. Elliott shall have the most comfortable carriage, and Marian and Mr. Hepworth and Ken and I will go in the other." That seemed to be the, best possible arrangement, and about three o'clock the procession started. Patty and Marian took the back seat of the open carriage, Mr. Hepworth and Kenneth Harper sat facing them. As Marian had already become very much interested in her new fad of authorship, and as under Miss Fischer's tuition she was rapidly developing into a real little blue-stocking, it is not strange that the conversation turned in that direction. "I looked in all the bookshops in the city for your latest works, Miss Marian," said Mr. Hepworth, "but they must have been all sold out, for I couldn't find any." "Too bad," said Marian. "I'm afraid you'll have to wait until a new edition is printed." "You're not to tease Marian," said Patty reprovingly. "She's been as patient as an angel under a perfect storm of chaff, and I'm not going to allow any more of it." "I don't mind," said Marian. "I think, if one is really in earnest, one oughtn't to be annoyed by good-natured fun." "Quite right," said Kenneth; "and ambition, if it's worth anything, ought to rise above comment of any sort." "It ought to be strengthened by comment of any sort," said Mr. Hepworth. "Of any sort?" asked Marian thoughtfully. "Yes, for comment always implies recognition, and that in itself means progress." "Have you an ambition, Mr. Hepworth?" said Patty suddenly. "But you have already achieved yours. You are a successful artist." "A man may have more than one ambition," said Mr. Hepworth slowly, "and I have _not_ achieved my dearest one." "I suppose you want to paint even better than you do," said Patty. "Yes," said the artist, smiling a little, "I hope I shall always want to paint better than I do. What's your ambition, Harper?" "To build bridges," said Kenneth. "I'm going to be a civil engineer, but my ambition is to be a bridge-builder. And I'll get there yet," he added, with a determined nod of his head. "I think you will," said Mr. Hepworth, "and I'm sure I hope so." Then the talk turned to lighter themes than ambition, and merry laughter and jest filled up the miles to Allaire.