“Patty! dear! my own little darling cousin, what is it? Tell Bumble! Tell me, dear.”
“N-nothing! Go away, I tell you.”
“I won’t go away! How can I, when I don’t know what’s the matter with you! Are you ill?”
“No—no—oh, Bumble, don’t pester me!”
“But what ails you, Patty? You don’t even speak like yourself. I’m going to call Nan.”
“No, don’t! Yes, do! Oh, I don’t care what you do!” and a brand-new deluge poured forth, as Patty sat up and stared at Helen with eyes full of utter woe as well as gushing tears.
Thoroughly frightened, Helen did call Nan, who came at once.
“Why, you poor little thing,” she said, sitting down beside Patty, and caressing her, as she offered a fresh handkerchief in place of the squeezed up mop in Patty’s hand.
“Never mind, dear, don’t try to talk,—just be quiet. And cry all you like,—but, gracious! I didn’t know one person could hold so many tears! Now, hush, dear, don’t talk. Keep right on crying, it’ll do you good.”
Nan’s comforting voice and her tender whimsicality, helped Patty, and she sobbed in Nan’s arms, for a time, then, by degrees, her tears began to be somewhat checked, and she stopped shaking.