"Mother," Patty asked, as the door closed behind Bathalina, "do you suppose Bath is as crazy as she seems? She talks like a perfect idiot." "Well," her mother answered meditatively, "sometimes I think that perhaps maybe she isn't; and then, again, I don't know but after all I can't tell but she is." Later in the forenoon Patty lay upon a light willow lounge which Will had placed for her on the piazza. It was a lovely summer's day. The bees hummed drowsily among the flowers, and Patty had drifted halfway from waking into sleeping. Through an opening in the vines which shaded the piazza, she watched the clouds moving slowly through the far, still spaces of blue ether, one shape insensibly changing into another as they passed. The girl was thinking of nothing higher or greater than her suitors, perhaps having meditated sufficiently upon graver subjects in the days since her accident, now making almost a week. She was not counting her conquests; yet she had a pleasant consciousness of her power, and recalled with satisfaction the compliments bestowed upon her in words or attentions. The two nephews of Mr. Putnam, Frank and Hazard Breck, had the previous afternoon called upon her; and the younger was of old a devoted worshipper at her shrine. Hazard Breck was a fine, manly fellow a year Patty's junior. He believed himself madly in love with her; and indeed, in the fashion of pure-minded youth, he felt for her that maiden passion which is light and sweetness without the heat and wholesome bitter of a man's love. As Patty lay watching the clouds, and enjoying the colors brought out by the sunlight as it filtered through the leafy screen, she heard the latch of the gate click. Without turning her head, she tried to guess whose step it was coming up the gravel-walk, and rightly concluded it must be that of Hazard Breck. He crossed the piazza, and came to her side. "Good-morning," he said, in a tone having something of the richness of his uncle's voice. "Are you asleep, or awake?" "Asleep," she answered, closing her eyes. "Isn't it a delicious morning to sleep and dream?" "What do you dream?" "That you have good news to tell." "You are no witch to guess that. You knew it from my voice." "What is it?" "Now I can torment you," he said, "as you did me last night. Guess." "One never guesses in sleep." "Dream it, then." "I should dream that the sky had fallen, and you had caught larks." "No, I haven't, worse luck. But you'll never get it." "Then tell me." "It is about uncle Tom," he said after some further bantering. "He's had a windfall. The Samoset and Brookfield stock has gone up like a rocket, and made his fortune. Isn't that jolly!" "I know nothing about stocks," she answered; "but I'm glad he's made his fortune." "I'm just wild over it!" Hazard said. "It is so opportune!" "Did he need it so much, then?" Patty asked, with a secret consciousness that she was pumping her guest. "Uncle Tom is so generous!" Breck answered.