"Let's ask her to visit us, can't we? I do want to know your people; and if she's all the people there are, I want to know her."
"Why, child, I don't know anything about her,—I don't even know if she's still in the land of the living."
"Can't you write and find out?"
"Why, I suppose so. But why do you want her? She's probably an awkward, countrified little thing—"
"I don't care for that! She's your kin, and I'm prepared to love her for that reason."
"That's a dear thing for you to say, Patty mine, but you may get more than you bargain for. Suppose you invite Azalea and Uncle Thorpe himself comes trotting along, too!"
"Well, I could even live through that! I don't suppose he'd bite me!"
"But I'm quite sure he wouldn't fit into your scheme of things entire! Oh, let sleeping dogs lie, Pattibelle. Take me for my whole family,—I'm a host in myself."
"You are,—my lord and master,—you sure are! But, all the same, I must hunt up your little cousin. Of course her father can't come, if he isn't invited. And I'd like to know the child. I might do something for her,—be of some real help to her, I mean. Maybe she's longing to get East and have the advantages I could give her."
"Maybe she's longing to stay put in her native desert."