"Why, Elise, you dear little, sweet, 'bused child! Am I as bad as all that? You do su'prise me! Well, well, I must mend my ways. I've always had a reputation for good nature, but it seems to be slipping awa' Jean, like snow in the thaw, Jean,--as the song book says. Now, my friend and pardner, here's my ultimatum. But smile on me, first, or I can't talk to you at all. You look like a thunder cloud,--a very pretty thunder cloud, to be sure,--but still, lowering and threatening. Brace up, idol of my heart,--shine out, little face, sunning over with raven black curls,--I seem to be poetically inclined, don't I?" Elise laughed in spite of herself. The two girls had been discussing plans, and as Patty stuck to her determination to spend Christmas Eve at the Blaneys', Elise was angry, because she was to have her own Christmas tree that night, and, of course, wanted Patty with her. They were in the Farringtons' library. It was nearly dusk, and Patty was just about to get her hat to go home, when they began the controversy afresh. "I can't help laughing, because you're so silly, but I'm angry at you all the same," Elise averred, with a shake of her dark, curly head. "You're so wrapped up in the Blaneys and their idiotic old crowd, that you have no time or attention for your old friends." "It does seem so," mused Patty; "of course, it might be, because the idiotic crowd are nice and pleasant to me, while my old friends, one of them, at least, is as cross as a bear with a bumped head." "Well, you're enough to make me cross. Here I'm going to have a big Christmas tree, and a lovely Christmas party, and you won't come to it. That makes me cross, but to have you throw me over for those ridiculous Blaneys makes me crosser yet." "You can't get much crosser, you're about at the limit." "No, I'm not, either. It makes me still crosser that you won't have the House Sale." "Oh, Elise, it's such a nuisance! Turn the whole place upside down and inside out, for a few dollars! Let's get the money by subscription. Everybody would be glad to give something for the girls' library." "No, they won't. Everybody has been asked for money for charity all winter, and they're tired of it. But a novel sale would bring in a lot." Patty and Elise were greatly interested in getting a library for the working girls' club, which they helped support. Patty was usually most enthusiastic and energetic in furnishing any project for helping this work along, and Elise was greatly surprised at her present unwillingness to hold a sale they had been considering. "And it's only because you're crazy over that Cosmic Club that you can't bother with the things that used to interest you. Phil Van Reypen thinks they're a horrid lot, and so does Chick Channing, and I do, too." "You forget that it was down at your house in Lakewood that I first met them."