AMBITIONS
"There!" said Kenneth, after the dance was over, "you look more like your
old self now."
"I haven't lost any hairpins, have I?" said Patty, putting up her hands
to her fluffy topknot.
"No, but you've lost that absurd dressed-up look."
"I'm getting used to my new frock. Don't you like it?"
"Yes, of course I do. I like everything you wear, because I like you. In
fact, I think I like you better than any girl I ever saw."
Kenneth said this in such a frank, boyish way that he seemed to be
announcing a mere casual preference for some matter-of-fact thing.
At least it seemed so to Patty, and she answered carelessly:
"You _think_ you do! I'd like you to be sure of it, sir."
"I am sure of it," said Ken, and then, a little more diffidently: "Do you
like me best?"
"Why, yes, of course I do," said Patty, smiling, "that is, after papa and
Aunt Alice and Marian and Uncle Charley and Frank and Mancy and
Pansy--and Mr. Hepworth."
Patty might not have added the last name if she had not just then seen
that gentleman coming toward her.
He looked at Patty with an especial kindliness in his eyes, and
said gently:
"Miss Fairfield, may I see your card?"
Patty flushed a little and her eyes fell.
"Please don't talk like that," she said. "I'm not grown up, if I am
dressed up. I'm only Patty, and if you call me anything else I'll
run away."
"Don't run away," said Mr. Hepworth, still looking at her with that grave
kindliness that seemed to have about it a touch of sadness. "I will call
you Patty as long as you will stay with me."
Then Patty smiled again, quite her own merry little self, and gave him
her card, saying:
"Put your name down a lot of times, please; you are a beautiful dancer,
and I like best to dance with the people I know best."
"I wish I had a rubber stamp," said Mr. Hepworth; "it's very fatiguing to
write one's name on every line."
"Oh, good gracious!" cried Patty, "don't take them all. I want to save a
lot for Frank and Ken--"
"And your father," said Mr. Hepworth.
"Papa? He doesn't dance--at least, I never saw him."
"But he did dance that last waltz, with Miss Allen."
"With Nan? Well, then, I rather think he can dance with his own
daughter. Don't take any more; I want all the rest for him, and please
take me to him."
"Here he comes now. Mr. Fairfield, your daughter wishes a word with you."
"Papa Fairfield!" exclaimed Patty, "you never told me you could dance!"
"You never asked me; you took it for granted that I was too old to frisk
around the ballroom."
"And aren't you?" asked Patty teasingly.
"Try me and see," said her father, as he took her card.
The trial proved very satisfactory, and Patty declared that she must have
inherited her own taste for dancing from her father.
The evening passed all too swiftly. Pretty Patty, with her merry ways and
graceful manners, was a real belle, and Aunt Alice was besieged by
requests for introductions to her niece and daughter. But Marian, though
a sweet and charming girl, had a certain shyness which always kept her
from becoming an immediate favourite. Patty's absolute lack of
self-consciousness and her ready friendliness made her popular at once.
Mr. Fairfield and Nan Allen were speaking of this, as they stood out on
the veranda and looked at Patty through the window.
"She's the most perfect combination," Miss Allen was saying, "of the
child and the girl. She has none of the silly affectations of
young-ladyhood, and yet she has in her nature all the elements that go to
make a wise and sensible woman."
"I think you're right," said Mr. Fairfield, as he looked fondly at his
daughter. "She is growing up just as I want her to, and developing the
traits I most want her to possess. A frank simplicity of manner, a happy,
fun-loving disposition, and a gentle, unselfish soul."
Meantime Patty and Mr. Hepworth were sitting on the stairs.
"Now my cup of happiness is full," remarked Patty. "I have always thought
it must be perfect bliss to sit on the stairs at a party. I don't know
why, I'm sure, but all the information I have gathered from art and
literature have led me to consider it the height of earthly joy."
"And is it proving all your fancy painted it?" asked Mr. Hepworth, who
was sitting a step below.
"Yes--that is, it's almost perfect."
"And what is the lacking element?"
"Oh, I wouldn't like to tell you," said Patty, and Mr. Hepworth was not
quite certain whether her confusion were real or simulated.
"May I guess?" he asked.
"Yes, if you'll promise not to guess true," said Patty. "If you did, I
should be overcome with blushing embarrassment."
"But I am going to guess, and if I guess true I will promise to go and
bring you the element that will complete your happiness."
"That sounds so tempting," said Patty, "that now I hope you _will_ guess
true. What is the missing joy?"
"Kenneth Harper," said Mr. Hepworth, looking at Patty curiously.
Without a trace of a blush Patty broke into gay laughter.
"Oh, you are ridiculous!" she said. "I have _you_ here, why should I
want him?"
"Then what is it you do want?" and Mr. Hepworth looked away as he evaded
her question.
"Since you make me confess my very prosaic desires, I'll own up that I'd
like a strawberry ice."
"Well, that's just what I'm dying for myself," said Mr. Hepworth gaily;
"and if you'll reserve this orchestra chair for me, I'll go and forage
for it. It looks almost impossible to get through that crowd, but I'll
return either with my shield or on it. Unless you'd rather I'd send
Harper back with the ice?"
"Do just as you please," said Patty, with a sudden touch of coquetry in
her smiling eyes; "it doesn't matter a bit to me."
But though a willing messenger, Mr. Hepworth found it impossible to
accomplish his errand with any degree of rapidity, and when he
returned, successful but tardy, he found young Harper waiting where he
had left Patty.
"She's gone off to dance with Frank Elliott," explained the boy
cheerfully, "and she said you and I could divide the ices between us."
"All right," said the artist; "here's your share."
The next morning Patty, Nan, and Marian went down to the beach for a
quiet chat.
"Let's shake everybody," said Patty, "and just go off by ourselves. I'm
tired of a lot of people."
"You're becoming such a belle, Patty," said Nan, "that I'm afraid you'll
be bothered with a lot of people the rest of your life."
"No, I won't," said Patty. "Lots of people are all very well when you
want them, but I'm going to cultivate a talent for getting rid of them
when you don't want them."
"Can you cultivate a talent, if you have only a taste to start with?"
said Marian, with more seriousness than Patty's careless remark seemed
to call for.
"If you have the least little scrap of a mustard-seed of taste, and
plenty of will-power, you can cultivate all the talents you want,"
said Patty, with the air of an oracle, "Why, what do you want to do
now, Marian?"
Marian's ambitions were a good deal of a joke in the Elliott family. At
one time she had determined to become a musician, and had spent,
unsuccessfully, many hours and much money in her endeavours, but at last
she was obliged to admit that her talents did not lie in that
direction. Later on she had tried painting, and notwithstanding
discouraging results, she had felt sure of her artistic ability for a
long time, until at last she had proved to her own satisfaction that she
was not meant to make pictures; and now, when she asked the above
question in a serious tone, Patty felt sure that some new scheme was
fermenting in her cousin's brain.
"What's up, Marian?" she said. "Out with it, and we'll promise to help
you, if it's only by wise discouragement."
"I think," said Marian, unmoved by her cousin's attitude, "I think I
should like to be an author."
"Do," said Patty; "that's the best line you've struck yet, because it's
the cheapest. You see, Nan, when Marian goes in for painting and
sculpture and music, her whims cost Uncle Charley fabulous sums of money.
But this new scheme is great! The outlay for a fountain pen and a few
sheets of stamps can't be so very much, and the scheme will keep you out
of other mischief all winter."
"It does sound attractive," said Nan. "Tell us more about it. Are you
going to write books or stories?"
"Books," said Marian calmly.
"Lovely!" cried Patty. "Do two at once, won't you? So you can dedicate
one to Nan and one to me at the same time; I won't share my dedication
with anybody."
"You can laugh all you like," said Marian; "I don't mind a speck, for I'm
sure I can do it; I've been talking to Miss Fischer, she's written lots
of books, you know, and stories, too, and she says it's awfully easy if
you have a taste for it."
"Of course it is," said Patty; "that's just what I told you. If you have
a taste--good taste, you know--and plenty of will-power and stamps, you
can write anything you want to; and I believe you'll do it. Go in and
win, Marian! You can put me in your book, if you want to."
"Willpower isn't everything, Patty," said Nan, whose face had assumed a
curious and somewhat wistful look; "at least, it may be in literature,
but it won't do all I want it to."
"What do you want, girlie?" said Patty. "I never knew you had an
ungratified ambition gnawing at your heart-strings."
"Well, I have; I want to be a singer."
"You do sing beautifully," said Marian. "I've heard you."
"Yes, but I mean a great singer."
"On the stage?" inquired Patty.
"Yes, or in concerts; I don't care where, but I mean to sing wonderfully;
to sing as I feel I could sing, if I had the opportunity."
"You mean a musical education and foreign study and all those things?"
said Patty.
"Yes," said Nan.
"But after all that you might fail," said Marian, remembering her own
experiences.
"Yes, I might, and probably I should. It's only a dream, you know, but we
were talking about ambitions, and that's mine."
"And can't you accomplish it?"
"I don't see how I can; my parents are very much opposed to it. They hate
anything like a public career, and they think I sing quite well enough
now without further instructions."
"I think so, too," said Patty. "I'd rather hear you sing those quaint
little songs of yours than to hear the most elaborate trills and frills
that any prima donna ever accomplished."
"Your opinion is worth a great deal to me, Patty, as a friend, but
technically, I can't value it so highly."
"Of course, I don't know much about music," said Patty, quite unabashed;
"but papa thinks so too. He said your voice is the sweetest voice he
ever heard."
"Did he?" said Nan.
"What is your ambition, Patty?" said Marian, after a moment's pause. "Nan
and I have expressed ourselves so frankly you might tell us yours."
"My ambition?" said Patty. "Why, I never thought of it before, but I
don't believe I have any. I feel rather ashamed, for I suppose every
properly equipped young woman ought to have at least one ambition, and I
don't seem to have a shadow of one. Really great ones, I mean. Of course,
I can sing a little; not much, but it seems to be enough for me. And I
can play a little on the piano and on the banjo, and I suppose it's
shocking; but really I don't care to play any better than I do. I can't
paint, and I can't write stories, but I don't want to do either."
"You can keep house," said Marian.
Patty's eyes lighted up.
"Yes," she said; "isn't it ridiculous? But I do really believe that's my
ambition. To keep house just perfectly, you know, and have everything go
not only smoothly but happily."
"You ought to have been a _chatelaine_ of the fourteenth century," said
Nan.
"Yes," said Patty eagerly; "that's just my ambition. What a pity it's
looking backward instead of forward. But I would love to live in a great
stone castle, all my own, with a moat and drawbridge and outriders, and
go around in a damask gown with a pointed bodice and big puffy sleeves
and a ruff and a little cap with pearls on it, and a bunch of keys
jingling at my side."
"They usually carry the keys in a basket," observed Marian; "and you
forgot to mention the falcon on your wrist."
"So I did," said Patty, "but I think the falcon would be a regular
nuisance while I was housekeeping, so I'd put him in the basket, and set
it up on the mantelpiece, and keep my keys jingling from my belt."
"Well, it seems," said Nan, "that Patty has more hopes of realising her
ambition than either of us."
"Speak for yourself," said Marian.
"I think I have," said Patty. "I have all the keys I want, and I'm quite
sure papa would buy me a falcon if I asked him to."