e homesick child.

CHAPTER XIX

Meanwhile, Anne was the innocent cause of trouble between Pat and his
father. Mr. Patterson came back in the early summer to spend a few weeks
with his son at the old home in Georgetown before midsummer heat drove
them to mountains or seashore.

The mansion was a roomy, old-fashioned house which his grandfather
Patterson had built when Georgetown was a fashionable suburb of the
capital. As Washington grew, fashion favored other sections, and the
stately homes of Georgetown were stranded among small shops and dingy
tenements. Some old residents, the Pattersons among the number, clung to
their homes.

Mr. Patterson had been little at home since his wife's death. Every
nook and corner of the house, her pictures on the walls, her books on
the shelves, her easy-chair beside the window, called her to mind. How
lonely and sad he was! His son was little comfort to him in his
loneliness. Except on their ocean voyage, Pat and his father had not
been together for three years and they had grown apart. Pat was no
longer just a merry little chap, ready for a romp with his father. He
was a tall, overgrown lad, absorbed in the sports and work of his
school-world, at a loss what to say to the silent, reserved business man
who made such an effort to talk to him.

One day, as they sat together at a rather silent dinner, a sudden
thought made Pat drop his salad fork and look up at his father. "When is
Anne coming, father?" he asked. "Where's her school? and when is it
out?"

"Anne? Anne who?" asked Mr. Patterson, blankly--for the moment
forgetful of the child who had been a brief episode in his busy life.

"Why, Anne Lewis, of course--our little Anne," said Pat.

"Oh, that child," answered Mr. Patterson, carelessly. "She is in an
orphan asylum in Virginia. I put her there the week we landed."

Pat started to his feet. "In an orphan asylum?" he gasped. He knew
asylums only through the experiences of Oliver Twist, and if his father
had said "in jail," the words would not have excited more horror.

"Of course," replied his father, viewing his emotion with surprise.
"That was where she belonged. We couldn't find any of her own people.
Why, son! You didn't expect me to keep her, did you?"

"Mother intended that. She said Anne was my--little--sister." The boy
found it difficult to speak.

"Your mother! If she had lived--but without her--be reasonable, Pat.
How could you and I--we rolling sto