"I don't know. I don't know what it'll be, or when it'll be."
"Oh, dear! I wish you did. I can't think who it is you wrote to,
Paul. And why didn't father like your doing it?"
"I haven't said that he—"
"Paul, you're very tiresome. Didn't he know you were going to do it?"
Pauline gathered up her cups and saucers without answering.
"Then he didn't," Patience observed. "Does mother know about it?"
"I mean to tell her as soon as I get a good chance," Pauline said impatiently, going back to the dining-room.
When she returned a few moments later, she found Patience still in the pantry, sitting thoughtfully on the old, blue sugar bucket. "I know," Patience announced triumphantly. "You've been writing to Uncle Paul!"
Pauline gasped and fled to the kitchen; there were times when flight was the better part of discretion, in dealing with the youngest member of the Shaw family.
On the whole, Patience behaved very well that evening, only, on going to bid her father good-night, did she ask anxiously, how long it took to send a letter to New York and get an answer.