Page:Herbert Jenkins - Patricia Brent Spinster.djvu/56

 to walk upstairs. Miss Sikkum looked at her in amazement.

"But aren't you going to open them?" she blurted out.

"Oh! presently," said Patricia in an off-hand way, "I had no idea it was so late," and she ran upstairs, leaving Miss Sikkum gazing after her in petrified astonishment.

That evening Patricia took more than usual pains with her toilette. Had she paused to ask herself why, she would have been angry.

When she came downstairs, the other boarders were seated at the table, all expectantly awaiting her entrance. On the table, in the front of her chair, were the two boxes.

"I had your presents brought in here, Miss Brent," explained Mrs. Craske-Morton.

"Oh! I had forgotten all about them," said Patricia indifferently, "I suppose I had better open them," which she proceeded to do.

The smaller box contained chocolates, as Mr. Bolton put it, "evidently bought by the hundred-weight." The larger of the boxes was filled with an enormous spray-bunch of white and red carnations, tied with green silk ribbon, and on the top of each box was a card, "With love from Peter."

Patricia's cheeks burned. She was angry, she told herself, yet there was a singing in her heart and a light in her eyes that oddly belied her. He had not forgotten! He had dared to disobey her injunction; for, she told herself, "good-bye"