"I do not understand you," she replied.
"I can explain. For some years past my father's condition has kept me very closely bound to him, and both before and after the beginning of the war, we lived abroad. A few years ago, I came to know and love a man, who I am convinced now was your brother. Am I mistaken in thinking that you are a sister of Philip Harrison?"
"No, no, he was my brother, my only brother."
"I met him in Venice just before the war and we came to be dear friends. But in the events that followed so tumultuously, and from participation in which, I was cut off by my father's illness, I lost sight of him."
"But I don't believe I remember hearing my brother speak of you, and he was not usually reticent."
"You would not remember me as Bartley Northcope, unless you were familiar with the very undignified sobriquet with which your brother nicknamed me," said the young man smiling.
"Nickname—what, you are not, you can't be 'Budge'?"
"I am 'Budge' or 'old Budge' as Phil called me."
Mima had her hand on the door-knob, but she turned with an impulsive motion and went back to him. "I am so glad to see you," she said, giving him her hand again, and "Mammy," she called, "Mr. Northcope is an old friend of brother Phil's!"
The effect of this news on mammy was like that of the April sun on an icicle. She suddenly melted, and came overflowing back into the room, her smiles and grins and nods trickling everywhere under the genial warmth of this new friendliness. Before one who had been a friend of "Mas' Phil's," Mammy Peggy needed no pride.