Page:Carolyn Wells - Patty Fairfield.djvu/247

 pretty balcony, but it chanced to be a bright, sunny autumn day, and the girls had their wraps on.

Besides, they were talking so busily, that I think they would scarcely have noticed it, had the mercury suddenly fallen to zero.

"Yes," Elsie Morris was saying, "we'll have a real literary club, and we'll have a president and constitution and everything. But don't let's have too many members. About twelve girls, I should say."

"Only girls?" said Marian, "aren't we going to have any boys? I know Frank would like to join."

"Oh, boys don't like to read," said Polly Stevens, "they're nice at parties and picnics, but we want this club to be really literary, and not just fooling."

"I know it," said Marian, "but we thought we'd have little plays and tableaux, and things like that. And how can we manage those without boys? What do you say, Patty?"

"I think it's nice to have the boys," said Patty, "but they won't come much in the afternoons. If we have them, it'll have to be an evening affair. Let's ask Aunt Alice."