Major Doyle sat opposite, stiffly erect, with his admiring eyes full upon Patsy.  At times he drummed upon the arms of his chair in unison with the music, nodding his grizzled head to mark the time as well as to emphasize his evident approbation.  Patsy had played this same piece from start to finish seven times since dinner, because it was the only one she knew; but the Major could have listened to it seven hundred times without the flicker of an eyelash.  It was not that he admired so much the “piece” the girl was playing as the girl who was playing the “piece.”  His pride in Patsy was unbounded.  That she should have succeeded at all in mastering that imposing looking instrument—­making it actually “play chunes”—­was surely a thing to wonder at.  But then, Patsy could do anything, if she but tried.

Suddenly Uncle John gave a dreadful snort and sat bolt upright, gazing at his companions with a startled look that melted into one of benign complacency as he observed his surroundings and realized where he was.  The interruption gave Patsy an opportunity to stop playing the tune.  She swung around on the stool and looked with amusement at her newly awakened uncle.

“You’ve been asleep,” she said.

“No, indeed; quite a mistake,” replied the little man, seriously.  “I’ve only been thinking.”

“An’ such beautchiful thoughts,” observed the Major, testily, for he resented the interruption of his Sunday afternoon treat.  “You thought ’em aloud, sir, and the sound of it was a bad imithation of a bullfrog in a marsh.  You’ll have to give up eating the salad, sir.”

“Bah! don’t I know?” asked Uncle John, indignantly.

“Well, if your knowledge is better than our hearing, I suppose you do,” retorted the Major.  “But to an ignorant individual like meself the impression conveyed was that you snored like a man that has forgotten his manners an’ gone to sleep in the prisence of a lady.”

“Then no one has a better right to do that,” declared Patsy, soothingly; “and I’m sure our dear Uncle John’s thoughts were just the most beautiful dreams in the world.  Tell us of them, sir, and we’ll prove the Major utterly wrong.”

Even her father smiled at the girl’s diplomacy, and Uncle John, who was on the verge of unreasonable anger, beamed upon her gratefully.

“I’m going to Europe,” he said.

The Major gave an involuntary start, and then turned to look at him curiously.

“And I’m going to take Patsy along,” he continued, with a mischievous grin.

The Major frowned.

“Conthrol yourself, sir, until you are fully awake,” said he.  “You’re dreaming again.”

Patsy swung her feet from side to side, for she was such a little thing that the stool raised her entirely off the floor.  There was a thoughtful look on her round, freckled face, and a wistful one in her great blue eyes as the full meaning of Uncle John’s abrupt avowal became apparent.