“It is a nice old house,” said Patty; “and it could be made awfully pretty and quaint.  I can see it, now, in my mind’s eye, with dimity curtains at the windows, and roses growing over the porch.”

“I hope you will never see those dimity curtains anywhere but in your mind’s eye,” said Marian.  “It’s a heathenish old place, and, anyway, it’s too far away from our house.”

“Papa says I can have a pony and cart,” said Patty; “and I could drive over every day.”

“A pony and cart!” exclaimed Helen Preston.  “Won’t that be perfectly lovely!  I’ve always wanted one of my own.  And shall you have man-servants, and maid-servants?  Oh, Patty, you never could run a big establishment like that.  You’ll have to have a housekeeper.”

“I’m going to try it,” said Patty, laughing.  “It will be an experiment, and, of course, I shall make lots of blunders at first; but I think it’s a pity if a girl nearly sixteen years old can’t keep house for her own father.”

“So do I,” said Laura.  “And, anyhow, if you get into any dilemmas we’ll all come over and help you out.”

The girls laughed at this; for Laura Russell was a giddy little feather-head, and couldn’t have kept house for ten minutes to save her life.

“Much good it would do Patty to have the Tea Club help her keep house,” said Florence Douglass.  “But we’ll all make her lovely things to go to housekeeping with.  I shall be real sensible, and make her sweeping-caps and ironing-holders.”

“Oh, I can beat that for sensibleness,” cried Ethel Holmes.  “I read about it the other day, and it’s a broom-bag.  I haven’t an idea what it’s for; but I’ll find out, and I’ll make one.”

“One’s no good,” said Marian sagely.  “Make her a dozen while you’re about it.”

“Oh, do they come by dozens?” said Ethel, in an awestruck voice.  “Well, I guess I won’t make them then.  I’ll make her something pretty.  A pincushion all over lace and pin ribbons, or something like that.”

“That will be lovely,” said Laura.  “I shall embroider her a tablecloth.”

“You’ll never finish it,” said Patty, who well knew how soon Laura’s bursts of enthusiasm spent themselves.  “You’d better decide on a doily.  Better a doily done than a tablecloth but begun.”

“Oh, I’ll tell you-what we can do, girls,” said Polly Stevens.  “Let’s make Patty a tea-cloth, and we’ll each write our name on it, and then embroider it, you know.”

“Lovely!” cried Christine.  “Just the thing.  Who’ll hemstitch it?  I won’t.  I’ll embroider my name all right, but I hate to hemstitch.”

“I’ll hemstitch it,” said Elsie Morris.  “I do beautiful hemstitching.”

“So do I,” said Helen Preston.  “Let me do half.”

“Ethel and I hemstitch like birds,” said Lillian Desmond.  “Let’s each do a side,—­there’ll be four sides, I suppose.”

“Well, the tea-cloth seems in a fair way to get hemstitched,” said Patty.  “You can put a double row around it, if you like, and I’ll be awfully glad to have it.  I’ll use it the first Saturday afternoon after I get settled.”