Page:Carolyn Wells - Patty Fairfield.djvu/23



a result of many letters back and forth between Mr. Fairfield and the Northern aunts, Patty stood one morning on the platform of the railway station, all ready to depart for her new homes.

It was the first week in December, and the little girl shivered as she thought of the arctic cold to which she imagined herself going.

"Of course they'll meet me in a sleigh, won't they, papa?" she said.

"Perhaps so, but I doubt it," he replied. "They don't have such snowstorms in Jersey now as they used to when I was a boy. Last winter they had no sleighing at all. But here comes Miss Powers; let us go to greet her." Miss Powers was a sharp-faced lady who came marching along the platform with a firm step.

Patty was to travel in her care, not because she was an especially desirable traveling 11