some tea. I’ve been to three committee meetings and I’m just about exhausted. Where’s Billee-boy, Patty?”

“I’m afraid he won’t be here until after dinner. He said it was unlikely he could come before.”

“Well, try to bear it, Patty. Can’t Philip beguile you for a time?”

“Yes, he’s a great little old beguiler, Phil is!” and Patty smiled at her guest.

“Of course I am,” declared Van Reypen. “I can beguile the birds off the trees,—but not Miss Patricia Fairfield, when she is waiting for her big Little Billee. Howsumever, I’ll do my best. Do I gather that I’m asked to dinner in place of the absentee?”

“You are not!” replied Patty, promptly, but Nan said, “Why, yes, Phil, stay. I’ll entertain you, if Patty won’t.”

“Thank you, Ma’am. That would suit me all right.”

“And how about your aviation training? When do you begin that?”

“It’s uncertain. I did expect to start for Wilmington next week, but matters are delayed by a screw loose in some of the red tape, and it may be a couple of weeks before I start.”

“What? I didn’t know you thought of going,” put in Patty, surprised.

“Yes, I’ve settled the preliminaries and I’m waiting further orders.”

“Going to Wilmington? Why, we won’t see you any more, then.”

“You don’t seem terribly upset over that! But, you will see me, I’m afraid. Wilmington is not so very far off, and the course is neither long nor strenuous. Why, it only takes about four months in all.”

“And then will you really fly? Up in the air, in big machines?”

“Such is my firm belief, Mademoiselle.”

“And will you fall and break your neck? They say they all do.”

“I’ll not promise to do that, unless you insist upon it. And it isn’t done as much as formerly, I believe.”

“Why are you two sparring so?” asked Nan, laughingly. “Aren’t you good friends, at the moment?”

“As good as anybody can be, when the lady he admires has been and went and gone and engaged herself to somebody else,” and Philip frowned darkly.

“Oho, so that’s it! Well, our young friend here is certainly engaged to her big Western suitor. Now, shall I look out for a sweet little girl for you?”

“No, thank you, Ma’am, it’s a case of Patty or nobody, where I’m concerned. But the game’s never out till it’s played out. Patty and Farnsworth may one or both of them yet change their minds.”

“You wouldn’t think so, if you saw them together,” laughed Nan. “They’re just about the most engagedest pair you ever saw!”

“Oh, come now,” said Patty, “we don’t show our affection in public, Nan!”

“Well, you have great difficulty not to do so. It’s all you can do, to hide it successfully.”

“And why should they?” asked Phil. “There’s no law against that sort of thing, is there?”

“Tell me more about your aviating,” said Patty, by way of changing the subject. “What do you do to learn?”

“Dunno myself, yet. They say the only way to learn to swim is to be thrown into the water. So I daresay the way to learn to fly, is to get in an aeroplane and start.”

“Nonsense! You have to be taught.”

“Then I will be taught. But I’m going to be a good aviator. I’m sure I’ll like the stunt, and I want to begin as soon as possible.”

“I wish I could do some war work,” and Patty sighed.

“Good gracious!” said Nan, “I don’t know any girl who does more of it than you do, Patty! When you’re not down in that old office doing clerical work, you’re knitting like a house afire. And you are on two or three committees and you write slogans for the Food people and for the Liberty Loan Bonds, and oh, I don’t know what all you do!”

“All of a sudden, isn’t it?” asked Philip, interestedly. “Have you been doing these things long?”

“Some of them,” said Patty. “But I have done more of late. I feel so useless unless I do.”

“Yes,” said Nan, “and then you work beyond your strength, and overtax yourself, and the first thing you know you will be useless indeed!”

“Why, Patty? Why these great works?” asked Van Reypen.

“Oh, because of Bill,” Nan answered for her. “You see he’s so mixed up in war work, that Patty must needs to do a lot also. And she’s such an extremist, she’s not satisfied with doing a bit, it must be a whole lot of bits.”

“Don’t believe her, Phil,” said Patty, gaily. “I do what I can, and no more. Also, I’m going to put a stop to this idea that I’m a delicate plant,—for I’m not. I’m as healthy as—as a backwoodsman.”

“Fine comparison. Your sturdiness is exactly that of a backwoodsman! You could haul logs, if you want to, I dare say.”

“Don’t be funny. But I am heaps stronger than I used to be. It’s a whole lot better for me to do things than to sit around and be coddled.”

“That’s true, Patty. What are you doing, that I can help you with? Any sort of work where you could use a pair of willing hands?”

“But you’re going off aviating——”

“Haven’t gone yet! Dunno when I will go. In the mean time let me help you. What’s your newest plan?”

“Well, for one thing, I’m going to help entertain the boys in khaki. A committee has asked me to, and if Nan agrees, I mean to devote one evening a week to it. Say we ask a few to dinner, and some more to come in the evening, and have some music and games and make it pleasant for them.”

“Count me in. I’ll gladly help out with such a program. Even after I go to Wilmington, I can get up here once a fortnight at least,—maybe, oftener.”

“All right. Now, what I’m thinking out, is how to make it pleasant for the boys we invite. I’d like to give them some real pleasure, not only some music and silly chatter.”

“Such as what? I mean, what have you in mind?”

“Well, I thought of getting some interesting lecturer——”

“Cut it out, Patty. They don’t want lectures,—of all things!”

“What do they want?”

“I think the most of them want just a home atmosphere, and a few hours of pleasant company, without much reference in the chat to war conditions.”

“Do you think so?”

“I’m sure of it. If you ask half a dozen soldiers and have your father and Mrs. Fairfield here, and a few girl friends of yours, if you like, I’ll guarantee your visitors will be better entertained than if you had the finest lecturer that ever droned out a lot of platitudes.”

“All right, Philip, you help me to get up such a party, and try it,—will you?”

“I sure will, and that with much quickness. Shall we say a week from tonight?”

“Yes that will be fine. I’ll ask Elise and——”

“Don’t go too fast. I’ll find the khaki boys first, and then you get the rest.”

“All right,” agreed Patty.

CHAPTER II
BUMBLE ARRIVES

“Hello! Patty Popinjay! Where are you?”

As a matter of fact, Patty was curled up in a big armchair near the library fire, waiting for that very voice.

“Here I am!” she cried in return and jumped up to be grabbed in the arms of a handsome, jolly-looking girl who came flying into the room. “Oh, Bumble, I’m so glad to see you!”

The newcomer laughed.

“Bumble!” she exclaimed; “I haven’t heard that name for years. Let me look at you, Patty.