At the breakfast table, Patty tried to persuade them not to go that day.  “You’ll faint in the train, Nan, on a day like this,” she said.  “Do wait until to-morrow.”

“There’s no prospect of its being any better to-morrow,” said Mr. Fairfield, looking anxious; “and I think the sooner Nan gets away, the better.  She needs cool, bracing mountain air.  The seashore doesn’t agree with her as it does with you, Patty.”

“I know it,” said Patty, who loved hot weather.  “Well, perhaps you’d better go, then; but it will be just boiling on the train.”

“No more so than here,” said Nan, smiling.  She wore a light pongee silk travelling gown, which was the coolest garb she could think of.  “But what’s bothering me is that Mrs. Parsons hasn’t arrived yet.”

“Oh, she’ll come to-day,” said Patty.  “Mona says she telegraphed yesterday that it was too hot to travel, but she’d surely come to-day.”

Mrs. Parsons was the aunt who was to chaperon the two girls at “Red Chimneys,” and Nan wanted to see the lady before she gave Patty into her charge.

“But it’s going to be just as warm to-day,” went on Nan.  “Suppose she can’t travel to-day, either?”

“Oh, she’ll have to,” said Patty, lightly.  “If you can travel, I guess she can.  Now, Nan, don’t bother about her.  You’ve enough to do to think of yourself and try to keep cool.  I’m glad Louise is going with you.  She’s a good nurse, and you must let her take care of you.”

Louise was the lady’s maid who looked after the welfare of both Nan and Patty.  But as Patty was going to a house where servants were more than plentiful, it had been arranged that Louise should accompany Nan.

“Don’t talk as if I were an invalid, Patty.  I’m sensitive to the heat, I admit, and this weather is excessive.  But I’m not ill, and once I get a whiff of mountain air I’ll be all right.”

“I know it, Nancy; and so fly away and get it.  And don’t waste a thought on poor, worthless me, for I shall be as happy as a clam.  I just love broiling, sizzling weather, and I’m sure my experiences at Mona’s will be novel—­if nothing else,—­and novelty is always interesting.”

“I hope you will have a good time, Patty, but it all seems so queer.  To go off and leave you with that girl, and an aunt whom we have never even seen!”

“Well, I’ll see her this afternoon, and if she won’t give me a photograph of herself for you, I’ll draw you a pen portrait of the Dragon Lady.”

“I hope she will be a Dragon, for you need some one to keep you steady.  You mean to do right, but you’re so thoughtless and impulsive of late.  I’m afraid it’s growing on you, Patty.”

“And I’m afraid you’re a dear old goose!  The heat has gone to your head.  Now, forget me and my vagaries, and devote all your time and attention to the consideration of Mrs. Frederick Fairfield.”

“Ready, Nan?” called her husband from the doorway, and then there was a flurry of leave-takings, and final advices, and last words, and good-bye embraces; and then the motor-car rolled down the drive carrying the travellers away, and Patty dropped into a veranda chair to realise that she was her own mistress.