course not. I looked out of the window and pretended he wasn't
there."
"Oh!" Conny murmured disappointedly.
"Then what happened?" Priscilla asked.
"Nothing at all. I got out at Coomsdale, and Uncle Tom met me with the
automobile. The chauffeur took my suit-case from the porter and I didn't
see it near to at all. We reached the house just at tea time, and I went
straight in to tea without going upstairs. The butler took up my
suit-case and the maid came and asked for the key so she could unpack.
That house is simply running over with servants; I'm always scared to
death for fear I'll do something that they won't think is proper.
"All the ushers and bridesmaids were there, and everything was very
jolly, only I couldn't make out what they were talking about half the
time, because they all knew each other and had a lot of jokes I couldn't
understand."
Conny nodded feelingly.
"That's the way they acted at the seaside last summer. I think grown
people have horrid manners."
"I did feel sort of young," Patty acknowledged. "One of the men brought
me some tea and asked what I was studying in school. He was trying to
obey Louise and amuse little cousin, but he was thinking all the time,
what an awful bore it was talking to a girl with her hair braided."
"I told you to put it up," said Priscilla.
"Just wait!" said Patty portentously. "When I went upstairs to dress for
dinner, the maid met me in the hall with her eyes popping out of her
head.
"'Beg pardon, Miss Patty,' she said. 'But is that your suit-case?'
"'Yes,' I said, 'of course it's my suit-case. What's the matter with
it?'
"She just waved her hand toward the table and didn't say a word. And
there it was, wide open!"
Patty took a key from her pocket, unlocked the suit-case, and threw back
the lid. A man's dress suit was neatly folded on the top, with a pipe, a
box of cigarettes, some collars, and various other masculine trifles
filling in the interstices.
"Oh!" they gasped in breathless chorus.
"They belong to him," Conny murmured fervently.
Patty nodded.
"And when I showed Uncle Tom that suit-case, he nearly died laughing. He
telephoned to the station, but they didn't know anything about it, and I
didn't know where the glee club was going to perform, so we couldn't
telegraph Mr. Hilliard. Uncle Tom lives five miles from town, and there
simply wasn't anything we could do that night."
"And just imagine his feelings when he started to
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