So that evening, armed with several newly-sharpened pencils and much of Daddy's writing paper, Pat began her first chapter. However, its progress met with a serious setback when Aunt Pen laid in her hands a letter from Angeline Snow. Pat opened it eagerly; she had not heard from any of her old schoolmates at Miss Prindle's for a long time.
She read it quickly. Miss Angeline, in a few breezy sentences, informed Pat that she would come immediately to make her a visit!
"... You were _such_ a dear to ask me (Pat read that twice, thoughtfully)--and the doctor says I need a teeny rest. Mama is in California and of course I cannot go to her! But we'll have a perfectly sweet time together and I'm just dying to see you again. We've missed you dreadfully here! I have _bushels_ to tell you--just you. (About the girls and things--you'll _die_ when you hear it all!) I'll come on the Empire on Thursday, so please meet me. I have a stunning new hat, henna and turquoise blue and a feather you'll want to _eat_. Bye-bye, your Angeline."
So intent was Pat upon examining the gold crest on the paper that she did not see the curious look that flashed over Aunt Pen's face.
"Good gracious," she exclaimed, suddenly, "that's to-morrow!"
"Yes," Aunt Pen answered quietly, "and we must do everything we can to make her visit pleasant!"
At a first glimpse, from the crown of her glossy black head to the patent tip of her smart little shoe, Angeline Snow, arriving the day following, was like a stranger to Pat!
Pat had left her at the close of that last term of school, after parting embraces and repeated pledges of undying friendship, a girl, long of leg and short of skirt like herself; now she beheld a fascinating young creature whose slim body was robed in a dress of the most stylish fabric and cut, its clinging skirts reaching quite to the tops of the little patent leather shoes, and the hair that Pat had always loved to braid and unbraid was pinned in curious puffs and waves close to the small head.
However, in the transformation, Angeline had lost none of the fascination that had made of Pat, in the old days at Miss Prindle's, a sort of adoring slave. She was amazingly pretty, her black hair made her white skin dazzling, the faintest of rose-pink flushed her cheeks and the tip of her pointed chin; her eyes set deep under long black lashes were as blue as a June sky; her mouth alone marred the perfection of her face--when the lips were not twisted into an affected smile, acquired after faithful study before the mirror, they glaringly betrayed the girl's little weaknesses.