“Like what?”

“Nothing; never mind.  What does Bill say about it?”

“Nothing.  I don’t believe he knows who’s to be Spirit of the Sea.  And probably he doesn’t care.”

“Probably he does!  Don’t be a goose, Patty Fairfield!  You know that great big angel Bill adores the ground you walk on.”

“Is he as fond of Real Estate as all that?  Well, I can’t give it to him, for it’s your ground that I’m on most of the time, and I suppose the beach is owned by the Realty Company or something.”

“Funny girl!  Patty, you make me laugh boisterously with that wit of yours!  Well, Miss Sweetness, will you help me with my costume?  Guy has ‘persuaded’ me to be Cleopatra on the Nile Float.”

“Oh, Mona, how lovely!  You’ll be a perfect Cleopatra.  Indeed I will help you!  What are you going to wear?”

“Whatever’s the right thing.  Of course it must be magnificent in effect.  I’m going to send for a dressmaker and two helpers to-morrow morning, and put them to work on it.  They can fit linings while I send to New York for the material.  Lizette can go and select it.  What do you think of gold-brocaded white satin?”

“Appropriate enough for Cleopatra, but ridiculous for a pantomime costume!  Get white paper muslin or sateen, and trace a design on it with gold paint.”

“No, sir-ee!  I don’t get a chance to shine as a dramatic star often, and I’m going to have the finest costume I can think up!”

“Oh, Mona, you have no sense of proportion,” laughed Patty; “go ahead then, and get your white satin, if it will make you happy.”

Apparently it would, and the two girls discussed the Cleopatra costume in all its details, until the little clock on the dressing-table held its two hands straight up in shocked surprise.

After Mona left her, Patty gave herself a scolding.  It was a habit of hers, when bothered, to sit down in front of a mirror and “have it out with herself” as she expressed it.

“Patty Fairfield,” she said to the disturbed looking reflection that confronted her, “you’re a silly, childish old thing to feel disappointed because you weren’t chosen to be Spirit of the Sea!  And you’re a mean-spirited, ill-tempered goose to feel as you do, because Daisy Dow has that part.  She’ll be awfully pretty in it, and Guy Martin had a perfect right to choose her, and she had a perfect right to change her mind and say she’d take it, even if she had told you she didn’t want it!  Now, Miss, what have you to say for yourself?  Nothing?  I thought so.  You’re vain and conceited and silly, if you think that you’d be a better Spirit of the Sea than Daisy, and you show a very small and disagreeable nature when you take it so to heart.  Now, will you brace up and forget it?”

And so practical and just was Patty’s true nature that she smiled at herself, and agreed to her own remarks.  Then dismissing the whole subject from her mind, she went to bed and to sleep.