Susan followed this good counsel, and holding her knitting carelessly in her lap, she sat quietly, now and then nodding, and opening her eyes with a slight start.  The poor woman was really most uncomfortable, but Patty had ordered this performance and she would have done her best had the task been twice as hard.

“You were a villain to tease poor Susan so at the table,” said Patty to Jack, as they sauntered on the veranda between dances.

“She came through with flying colours,” he replied, laughing at the recollection.

“Yes, but it was mean of you to fluster the poor thing.”

“Don’t you know why I did it?”

“To tease me, I suppose,” and Patty drew down the corners of her mouth and looked like a much injured damsel.

“Yes; but, incidentally, to see that pinky colour spread all over your cheeks.  It makes you look like a wild rose.”

“Does it?” said Patty, lightly.  “And what do I look like at other times?  A tame rose?”

“No; a primrose.  Very prim, sometimes.”

“I have to be very prim when I’m with you,” and Patty glanced saucily from beneath her long lashes; “you’re so inclined to—­”

“To what?”

“To friskiness.  I never know what you’re going to do next.”

“Isn’t it nicer to be surprised?”

“Well,—­that depends.  It is if they’re nice surprises.”

“Oh, mine always are!  I’m going to surprise you a lot of times this summer.  Are you to be here, at Mona’s, all the rest of the season?”

“I shall be here two months, anyway.”

“That’s time enough for a heap of surprises.  Just you wait!  But,—­ I say,—­I suppose—­oh, pshaw, I know this sounds horrid, but I’ve got to say it.  I suppose everything you’re invited to, Mona must be also?”

Patty’s eyes blazed at what she considered a very rude implication.

“Not necessarily,” she said, coldly.  “You are quite at liberty to invite whom you choose.  Of course, I shall accept no invitations that do not include Mona.”

“Quite right, my child, quite right!  Just what I was thinking myself.”

Patty knew he was only trying to make up for his rudeness, and she looked at him severely.  “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” she said.

“I am!  Oh, I am! deeply, darkly, desperately ashamed.  But I’ve succeeded in making your cheeks turn that peculiar shade of brick-red again!”

“They aren’t brick-red!”

“No?  Well, a sort of crushed strawberry shading to magenta, then!”

Patty laughed, in spite of herself, and Jack smiled back at her.

“Am I forguv?” he asked, in a wheedling voice.

“On condition that you’ll be particularly nice to Mona all summer.  And it’s not much to your credit that I have to ask such a thing of you!”

“You’re right, Patty,” and Jack looked honestly penitent.  “I’m a good-for-nothing brute!  A boor without any manners at all!  Not a manner to my name!  But if you’ll smile upon me, and let me,—­er—­ surprise you once in a while, I’ll,—­oh, I’ll just tie myself to Mona’s apron strings!”