"Why, child, you just said never, and a week's a good deal short of that," answered busy little Mrs. Keniston, tucking another stick into the fire, with an odd little gleam, either from the fire-light or some inward amusement, dancing round the corners of her mouth. She was used to Patty's nevers, and a little tired of them.
Patty went to the window, and drummed on the pane, and stared rather forlornly into the small yard, where red-haired Job Twitchett was jumping up and down, jerking the handle of the old blue pump. He stuck out his tongue at her and winked one eye, but she was too abstracted to notice this customary beginning of hostilities. It was all very well to quarrel with Matty Monroe, and vow never to speak to her again (Matty was real mean to stay away from the spring, just because Kez King had said she might drop in that afternoon; she had no business to break her promise, and she had promised Patty, certain sure, that she would come and bring Rosinella and the tea set with her), but to be forbidden to speak to her for a week was quite another thing. Why, Sir Leon was to have married Rosinella before the week was out!
There was a great commotion in the yard. Job was setting Pug at Tabby. "Hi! look at yer old cat!" he shouted, starting a war-dance on the platform of the clothes-drier, and pointing derisively to poor pussy, who stood on the wood-shed roof, with her tail the size of a hearth-brush. But even this attack on her favorite could not dispel Patty's melancholy. She just glanced out to see that Tabby was really out of reach, and then went slowly up stairs to her little room in the attic to find Sir Leon.
Sir Leon was a doll. He was a very splendid doll, with brown eyes and hair, a black velvet cap with a long white feather, a silken cloak, and slashed trousers reaching only to the knee, like a knight of olden times. He even had long gray stockings, and—crowning glory!—a pair of top-boots made of chamois leather. Cousin Evelyn had dressed him for Patty's birthday, and Cousin Evelyn came from New York, and could do anything.
Patty picked him up, and looked fiercely in his amiable waxen countenance.
"I don't care a snap for your whiskers!" she exclaimed, hotly, giving him a vicious little shake. "I don't believe but what Cousin Evelyn just stuck 'em on herself; and it's my opinion you were made for a girl, Sir Leon de Montmorenci."
And at the thought of that dreadful possibility, and Matty Monroe's faithlessness, she sat down on the boot-box and cried.
Next morning Mrs. Keniston was rolling out pie-crust in the kitchen, when Patty entered slowly, with a kind of dubious brightness in her face, and curled up in a big chair by the table, with her head on her hand. A pencil and some paper projected from her apron pocket.
"Well, Patty," said Mrs. Keniston, cheerily, "what kind of turn-overs shall it be?"
"Mamma," responded Patty, soberly, "did you ever have any love-letters?"