Page:Carolyn Wells - Patty Fairfield.djvu/228

 you at once. I want everything. My things are no good at all."

"Wait, wait," said Aunt Alice, "don't dispose of your wardrobe in such a summary way. Suppose we look it over together, and see what's best to be done."

"All right," said Patty, "but I'm really ashamed to show you the miserable lot."

"Why, Patty," said Aunt Alice, as she looked over the torn and crumpled dresses and under-clothing, "these do seem to be unwearable, but they are not hopelessly so. You see, the trouble is, they've been neglected, and clothes, like plants or children, won't thrive under neglect."

"I know it, Aunt Alice, but we never thought of mending things down at the Hurly-Burly, and there was no one to do it for us, as there was at Aunt Isabel's."

"Never mind your other aunts, Patty; you have to deal now with your Aunt Alice, and you will find her a regular tyrant."

But the loving smile which accompanied this speech robbed it of all tyrannical effect.

"Now," the "tyrant" went on, "we'll put in one pile all the things that are too faded or worn