to one. Besides, in such a place she was likely to be recognized by someone sooner or later, for she had many school friends who lived in the East, and had met many people traveling in the West.
She was glad that she had written her father just the night before leaving home, and would not have to write him again for a few days. Somehow perhaps she could plan an explanation which would make the Eastern postmark seem perfectly consistent with the kind of life he expected her to live during his absence. Perhaps he would think she was visiting a school friend, or gone East for a course of study — or —— But that did not matter now. She must know what she was going to do immediately, to-day!
Her eyes wandered to a company of gypsies in soiled and gaudy garments and many jewels who had swarmed into the seat across from her and she watched their absorbed chatter. There was a poise about the swarthy old grandmother in her tiers of flowing scarlet and purple calico skirts that would have sat well upon some platinum-set bejeweled woman of society. With entire unconsciousness of the staring throngs she ordered her flock of sons and daughters and grandchildren, and Patty, fascinated, watched; saw the goodwill, and kindliness between the whole little company, and felt a sudden choking aloneness in her throat.
All at once the gypsies picked up their babies and their belongings and walked majestically away, as unobservant of any but themselves as if they had been passing by an ant hill, and suddenly Patricia, roused to the fact that she was hungry, that it was twelve o'clock, and she had not thought what she ought to do.
She arose with determination and went to check her suitcase. Then she started out into the great unknown city to find a place to eat. While she was eating she could think perhaps.
She wandered across Seventh Avenue, across the tangled tracks where Broadway intersects Sixth Avenue, stopped timidly to glance up at the elevated, then walked on uncertainly up Thirty-third Street and turned into Fifth Avenue. Ah! She had read and heard of Fifth Avenue, and here she was at last!
Presently she came to an inviting tea-room and dropped into it as naturally and happily as a flower blossoms on its native heath. Without thought she ordered what she would as was her wont, and ate with relish, watching the people about her, and thinking still about the gypsies, contrasting them with this and that one she saw about her, wondering what their lives might be, and if any had a trouble like her own. In the midst of her thoughts they brought her the check marked with the costly sum of her dinner, and when she went to pay it and put beside it the usual tip for the waitress, she had nothing left in her pocketbook but one gleaming silver quarter, and ten cents of that she would have to use to redeem her suitcase!
CHAPTER III
For two midnight black minutes the gay little throng at Mary Elizabeth’s popular tea-room vanished into a medley of color and sound without meaning to Patricia Merrill's startled ears and eyes, while the chrysanthemums in the many paned windows swam like motes in the color of the room. Her head began to reel, and a queer faintness and fright possessed her, as one who finds herself suddenly upon the brink of a bottomless abyss, with more momentum on than can be instantly controlled. It was as if she swayed there uncertainly for long fractions of time anticipating a fatal plunge, which was inevitable, no matter how hard she tried to save herself. Then, gropingly, her fingers found the glass of ice water just replenished by an observing attendant who was a judge of duvetyne and moleskin and had an eye for high finance.
The cold touch of the glass to her lips, the frosty trickle of the water down her newly parched throat, brought her back to her senses once more to ask herself what had brought her to this startled brink of fear. Then over her wearied senses rolled the answer almost stalely. Why! It was only that she was alone in a great and strange city without funds! Ten cents between her and starvation! A paltry dime between her and the street! It seemed somehow trifling beside the great sorrow that had brought her on this sudden pilgrimage. After all, what was money? Just a thing with which you bartered for more things! One could get along without things. At least without many of them! Hadn't she always managed without pocket money when her allowance ran out before the month was up, and without borrowing, too! Her father had hated borrowing and had succeeded in making her hate it also. Of course she had her board at the school, but surely there must be a way for an able-bodied girl to earn her bread in a great city. Of course there would be! She had once helped another girl with her lessons at school and earned enough to get through till allowance time without asking her father for any in advance. There would surely be some way. Of course there were friends to whom she might apply, but they were out of the question because her hiding might be revealed, and father wouldn't like it to have any one know she had come away so peculiarly. No, she must meet the emergency herself, and she would!
She set her firm young lips and straightened up self-reliantly the warm blood rushing back into its normal course once more as her fears vanished into the sunshine of the day, and the chrysanthemums and pretty ladies resolved themselves sanely into their proper relations. She was able to look about her calmly, and face the situation. She had been a fool, of course, to be so absent minded as to let her money all get away from her so swiftly. She just hadn't been thinking of money. Of course if she had counted it at the start and set out to save, she might have eaten toast and tea on the train, and have even traveled in the common car. That was probably what people did who earned their own living. She would have had enough to carry her through the first day or two comfortably if she had done that. But there was no use crying over spilled milk. The money was gone and she must get out and find a way to earn her living. She had not an idea in the world what she could do, for she had not been educated with such an end in view. She had fluttered about in her studies from science to literature, and arts, about as a butterfly in a garden goes from flower to flower, looking at them all as curious amusements, not at all connected with her daily living. She had never really taken an hour of her schooling seriously, although she had been a bright student as students go. But as for any practical knowledge that she could turn to now as a help in her need, it was as alien to her as a strange tongue. She tried to think what she could do – what other girls did who had to earn their living. Anne Battell had been a statistician, and was now in a fine position, getting a fabulous salary. But Anne had been training all her school life with this object in view. Norah Vance was doing interior decorating with a big department store in Chicago. Elinore had gone to China to teach music in a college. Theodora and Emilie Whiting were in some social work, and that plain little Mary Semple, who worked in the college office for her board, was a stenographer somewhere. But they all had got ready for some life work, while she, Patty Merrill, had only been getting ready to go home and have a good time. It seemed she had for years just been existing till she could get home and enjoy being with her people, and now that she had got there, there wasn’t any home nor any love nor any people for her. Even her father was away off in almost another world, and there was no telling whether they, any of them, even really belonged to her at all more than in name. It was all dreadful and suffocating and she must not think about it. There were tears swelling up her throat and bursting into her eyes, and that good-looking young man at the second table to the right was looking curiously at her. In a moment he would see those tears – he half-suspected them now – he had no right to look at her so curiously! She must brace up and stop the tears! It was all nonsense anyway! There was work somewhere for her and she would just go out and find it! She would scare up something just as she used to scare up a costume out of nothing in a sudden emergency for a play sometimes only three minutes before the curtain rose. She would go out and try the first thing she came to. Maybe she would go up some front steps and ring a doorbell and ask for something! Why not! Anyhow she must get out of here into the cool air and conquer those foolish tears!
With a little motion of proud self-reliance she gathered up her gloves smilingly, paid her check with a curious glance of awe at the lonely silver piece sliding about in the otherwise empty purse and calmly made her way out of the crowded room, head held high, followed
