"Pat! You're—crying!" Bawne had never yet seen his friend weep, and he was wrung between pity and bewilderment. "Who has vexed you? Who has been hurting you?" he begged, and she answered brokenly:
"No one! ... Someone.... It doesn't matter!" adding: "Would you punch him, if anyone had—done as you say?"
"Wouldn't I?"
"My sweet!" Her arm went round his slight, square shoulders. She doted on the little amber freckles on his pure, healthy skin, the little drake's tail of silky red-brown hair at the nape of his brown neck, the half-shy, half-bold curve of his mouth as he smiled, the blue sparkle of his eye glancing sidewise up at her. She found in the pure warmth and sweetness of the slight young body leaning against her, a healing, comforting balm.
"Why aren't you my little brother, Bawne?" she said, hugging him closer. He answered after an instant's thought:
"If my mother could be your mother too, it would be jolly! Not unless! ..."
He was not going to take on Mildred for anybody. Patrine sighed pensively.
"That's what I used to cry for when I was a little pig-tailed girl, my sonny. More than anything I wanted to belong to Aunt Lynette. But she's so young—only thirty-three. She couldn't be my mother."
"No." His eyes considered her face gravely. "Of course not. You're far too old. How old are you, Cousin Pat?"
"How old am I?" A shudder went through her. "Nineteen in August. And I feel about a hundred and one."