CHAPTER II:A LAST MEETING
Patty and her father looked at several apartments before they found one which seemed satisfactory in every way. It was necessary that it should be near the school Patty was to attend, and also conveniently located with a view to Mr. Fairfield’s daily trips downtown.
Besides this, Mr. Fairfield was particular about the atmosphere of the hotel. Some they looked into seemed to Patty like gorgeous glittering palaces, with decorations so rich and ornate as to be almost barbaric. These Mr. Fairfield came out of as rapidly as he went in, and more than once Patty cast a longing backward glance at the marble floors and gilded frescoes which her father seemed to scorn. On the other hand, Mr. Fairfield was equally ill-pleased with a house which was unattractive in appearance, or whose furnishings were not tasteful.
Patty almost began to think that her father was too fastidious, and would never be able to find a place that would exactly suit him.
However, the moment they stepped inside of a certain apartment hotel named The Wilberforce, Mr. Fairfield’s face showed an expression of satisfaction, which immediately convinced Patty that they had struck the right trail at last.
And so it proved, for after looking into several suites of rooms then vacant, Mr. Fairfield told Patty that if she could feel contented to take up her abode there, he thought he could.
Patty willingly agreed, for she, too, liked The Wilberforce from the first.
The hotel faced Central Park, and though not among the largest in the city, it was more attractively planned than any of the others they had looked at.
The apartment they liked best was a corner one with windows looking toward the east and south. The large corner room had a beautiful bay window, and was so light and sunny that Patty declared it should be their library.
“Library, sitting-room and general living-room,” said her father, laughing; “you know, Puss, you can’t have as many rooms at your disposal in the city as you have in Vernondale. But we’ll have all our books and favourite belongings in this room, and I’m sure we can make it very comfortable. Then this smaller room next will be a more formal reception room for casual callers.”
There were four bedrooms, and Mr. Fairfield insisted that the two sunniest and pleasantest ones should be assigned to Patty and Grandma Elliott. The other two, whose windows opened on an airshaft instead of on the street, were to be Mr. Fairfield’s bedroom and a guest-room.
The whole apartment was very prettily furnished in good taste, and entirely without that lavish use of bright colours which so often characterises a hotel.
The library was in green and the little reception-room in
