[Aunt Jane’s Nieces by Edith Van Dyne]@TWC D-Link bookAunt Jane’s Nieces CHAPTER XXIV 5/11
"There's Danny Reeves's restaurant.
Let's get off and have our dinner now; I'm as hungry as a bear." So they stopped the car and descended, lugging all the parcels into the little restaurant, where they were piled into a chair while the proprietor and the waiters all gathered around Patsy to welcome her home. My, how her eyes sparkled! She fairly danced for joy, and ordered the dinner with reckless disregard of the bill. "Ah, but it's good to be back," said the little Bohemian, gleefully. "The big house at Elmhurst was grand and stately, Major, but there wasn't an ounce of love in the cupboard." "Wasn't I there.
Patsy ?" asked Uncle John, reproachfully. "True, but now you're here; and our love, Uncle, has nothing to do with Elmhurst.
I'll bet a penny you liked it as little as I did." "You'd win," admitted the little man. "And now," said the girl to the smiling waiter, "a bottle of red California wine for Uncle John and the Major, and two real cigars. We'll be merry tonight if it bankrupts the Doyle family entirely." But, after a merry meal and a good one, there was no bill at all when it was called for. Danny Reeves himself came instead, and made a nice little speech, saying that Patsy had always brought good luck to the place, and this dinner was his treat to welcome her home. So the Major thanked him with gracious dignity and Patsy kissed Danny on his right cheek, and then they went away happy and content to find the little rooms up the second flight of the old tenement. "It's no palace," said Patsy, entering to throw down the bundles as soon as the Major unlocked the door, "but there's a cricket in the hearth, and it's your home, Uncle John, as well as ours." Uncle John looked around curiously.
The place was so plain after the comparative luxury of Elmhurst, and especially of the rose chamber Patsy had occupied, that the old man could not fail to marvel at the girl's ecstatic joy to find herself in the old tenement again.
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