CHAPTER VII.
A SLEIGH-RIDE The winter slipped away, and as Patty was a little girl who always looked on the bright side of things, she really had very good times at Ville Rosa.
She became a favorite with the Elmbridge boys and girls, and her unfailing good nature kept her from quarreling with her cousins though she was often sorely tried by them.
Lessons were a very uncertain quantity.

Sometimes there would be none at all for a week or two weeks, and then perhaps school would keep regularly for a few days, only to be followed by another interruption.
Patty found it only too easy to fall into these careless ways, and if she had stayed all her life at Villa Rosa, I fear she would have become indolent and selfish, for the rule of the whole household seemed to be "Pleasure before Duty," and when that rule is followed it often happens that the duties are not done at all.
In January, to Patty's great delight, there came a heavy snowstorm.
It made fine sleighing, for the roads were in just the right condition and as the weather was clear and cold there was good prospect of many days' fun.
Uncle Robert, always ready to give the young people a good time, instigated a sleighing parade, in which all the society people of Elmbridge were invited to join.
It was to be a grand affair.

Every sleigh was to be decorated in beautiful or unique fashion, and there was great rivalry among the families of Elmbridge as to whose sleigh should present the finest spectacle.
"Papa," said Ethelyn, "I shall drive Patricia in my little cutter, of course, and I want you to fix it up, somehow, so that it will beat everybody else all hollow." "Ethelyn," said her mother, "if you don't stop using those slang phrases, you shan't go in the parade at all.

Now promise to talk like a lady, and I'll see to it that your sleigh outshines all the rest." "All right," said Ethelyn, "I'll promise.

Now, how shall we decorate it ?" "Never mind," said her mother, "I wouldn't trust you with the secret.