"Have you spoken to Patty about Fox, mother?" she asked,—"about his coming here?"
Her mother smiled whimsically. "Not exactly to Patty," she replied. "I spoke to Uncle John."
"That is the same thing, in effect," said Sally, chuckling. "Much the same thing, but speaking to Patty might save her self-respect."
"I thought," Mrs. Ladue suggested gently, "that if the idea seemed to come from Uncle John it would do that. It is a little difficult to convince Patty and—and I didn't like to seem to press the matter."
Sally bent forward and kissed her. "I beg your pardon," she said. "No doubt you are right."
She took the pen and wrote a few lines in her firm, clear hand. Then she tossed the letter into her mother's lap and sat silent, gazing out of the window, in her turn, at the old, familiar wall and at the snow beyond.
"Mother," she asked suddenly, "what would you do—what would you like to do if father should happen to turn up?"
Her mother was startled out of her usual calm. Her hand went up instinctively to her heart and she flushed and grew pale again and she looked frightened.
"Why, Sally," she said. She seemed to have trouble with her breathing. "Why, Sally, he hasn't—you don't mean—"
Apparently she could not go on. "No, no," Sally assured her hastily, "he hasn't. At least, he hasn't that I know of."