rning planning for her entrance in
character. They successfully looted the "Baby Ward" where the fifteen
little girls of the school occupied fifteen little white cots set in
fifteen alcoves. A white, stiffly starched sailor suit was discovered,
with a flaring blue linen collar, and a kilted skirt, that was
shockingly short. Kid McCoy gleefully unearthed a pair of blue and white
socks that exactly matched the dress, but they proved very much too
small.

"They wouldn't look well anyway," said Patty, philosophically, "I've got
an awful scratch on one knee."

Gymnasium slippers with spring heels reduced her five feet by an inch.
She spent the early afternoon persuading her hair to hang in a row of
curls, with a spanking blue bow over her left ear. When she was
finished, she made as sweet a little girl as one would ever find romping
in the park on a sunny morning.

"What will you do if he kisses you?" inquired Kid McCoy.

"I'll try not to laugh," said Patty.

She occupied the fifteen minutes of waiting in a dress rehearsal. By the
time Maggie arrived with the tidings that the visitor was below, she had
her part letter-perfect. Kid and Harriet followed as far as the first
landing, where they remained dangling over the banisters, while Patty
shouldered her doll and descended to the drawing-room.

She sidled bashfully into the door, dropped a courtesy, and extended a
timid hand to the tall young gentleman who rose and advanced to meet
her.

"How do you do, Uncle Wobert?" she lisped.

"Well, well! Is this little Patty?"

He took her by the chin and turned up her face for a closer
inspection--Mr. Pendleton was, mercifully, somewhat near-sighted. She
smiled back sweetly, with wide, innocent, baby eyes.

"You're getting to be a great big girl!" he pronounced with fatherly
approval. "You reach almost to my shoulder."

She settled herself far back in a deep leather chair, and sat primly
upright, her feet sticking straight out in front, while she clasped the
doll in her arms.

"Sank you very much, Uncle Bobby, for my perfectly beautiful doll!"
Patty imprinted a kiss upon the smiling bisque lips.

Uncle Bobby watched with gratified approval. He liked this early
manifestation of the motherly instinct.

"And what are you going to name her?" he inquired.

"I can't make up my mind." She raised anxious eyes to his.

"How would Patty Junior do?"

She repudiated the suggestion; and they finally determined upon Alice,
af