appearance."

Poor Patty began to wonder whether it was so very nice after all, to have
fine clothes if she could have no voice in their selection.

But she thought, what is the use of objecting? Aunt Isabel will do as she
pleases anyway, and while I'm staying with her, I ought to agree to what
she wants.

Then two dressmakers came to stay a fortnight. Ethelyn and Patty were given
a holiday from lessons, the schoolroom was turned into a sewing-room, and
Miss Morton and Reginald betook themselves to the library.

Patty was rather sorry to miss her school hours, for the history lessons
had become interesting, but she soon found that Aunt Isabel's word was law.
It was a law often broken by her own children, but Patty was not of a
mutinous heart, and she amiably obeyed Mrs. St. Clair's commands. But she
had her own opinion of the household, and she did not hesitate to express
it plainly in her letters to her father.

"I begin to see," she wrote to him one day, "what you meant when you
explained to me about proportion. In this house, money, and fine clothes,
and making a great show, are out of all proportion to everything else. They
never think of reading books, or doing charity work, or anything but
showing off. And if a thing costs a lot, it's all right, but if it's simple
and not expensive, it's no good at all. I can tell you, Mr. Papa, that when
we have our home, we'll have less fuss and feathers, and more comfort and
common sense. And it isn't only that the things cost so much, but they're
always talking about it, and telling how expensive they are. Why, Uncle
Robert has told me half-a-dozen times how much his horses and carriages