Patty looked at him calmly.  “I’ll tell you what,” she said:  “you put down your initials for every dance; then, if I do find any partners I like better, I’ll give them dances; and, if not, you see I’ll have you to depend on.”

Cameron stared at her, but Patty looked at him with an innocent smile, as if she were not asking anything extraordinary.

“Well, you’ve got a nerve!” the young man exclaimed.

“Why, it was your own proposition that you have all the dances;” and Patty looked almost offended.

“Poppycheek, you shall have it your own way!  You shall have anything you want, that I can give you.”  And Cameron scribbled his initials against every one of the twenty dances on the programme.

“You might have put K. C. to the first and then ditto after that,” said Patty, as she watched him.

“Nay, nay, Pauline!” and Kit gave her a shrewd glance.  “Think what would happen then.  You’d give a dance to some other man, maybe, and he’d set down his initials, and all the rest of the dittos would refer to him!”

“Poor man!  I never thought of that!  But it isn’t likely there’ll be any others except Ken.”

“Oh, don’t you worry!  Everybody will want an introduction to you, after they see you dance.”

“I don’t think much of that for a compliment!  I’d rather be loved for my sweet self alone.”

“Have you never been?”

“Many, many times!” and Patty sighed in mock despair.  “But my love affairs always end tragically.”

“Your suitors drown themselves, I suppose?”

“Do you mean if I encourage them?”

“Do you know what a silly you are?”

“Do you know what a goose you are?”

“Children, stop quarrelling,” and Mrs. Perry smiled at the chattering pair.  “Miss Fairfield, several amiable young men of my acquaintance desire to be presented to you.  May I?”

Patty smilingly acquiesced, and in a moment half a dozen would-be partners were asking for dances.

They looked rather taken aback at sight of Patty’s card, but she calmly explained to them the true condition of things, and they accepted the situation with smiles of admiration for a girl who could command such an arrangement.  Patty would not give more than one dance to each, as she wanted to find out which ones she liked best.

Mr. Perry brought up some of his acquaintances, too, and shortly Patty’s programme showed an astonishing lot of hieroglyphics scribbled over Kit’s initials.

“Here are twelve dances you may have for your other friends,” said Patty, to Mr. Cameron.  “Take the numbers as I call them off:  one, two, three——­”

“Oh, wait a minute!  Have you given them all away?”

“No; only the first twelve, so far.  But cheer up!  I may be able to dispose of the others.”

“You’re a naughty, bad, mean little princess; and I don’t love you any more.”