"I daresay, but you are slim as a willow branch. I could take you up between my finger and thumb."
"If you could catch me, Uncle Julian; but, see—you could not!"
With a swift spring she threw herself out of the low French window and stood on the lawn, ready poised for flight.
A brightness came into her uncle's eyes.
"I have known many and learned much," he thought, "but I have missed the best."
"Come, Uncle," she said, tapping the grass with her shoe, "I can't run as well as in kilt and sandals, or like the girl who played ball on the sands, but I can beat you—yes, I could run in circles about you!"
"I know, I know, you swallow!" proclaimed an admiring uncle. "But the day is past when I ran after agreeable young women. Generally they have to pocket their pride and come to see me—you do every day, you know!"
"Yes," said Patsy, "but do not think it is to see you, even if you are my mother's brother—"
"Half-brother—"
"My mother's brother, I say," persisted Patsy. "It is because you teach me to speak French and to read Latin books, and the mathematic (though that I love not so well), and also chiefly because you lend me many books to read up in dull old Cairn Ferris."