‘Very American’ they both were.  Mr. Patterson was a slim, alert business man, with a firm chin cleft in the middle, mouth hidden by a tawny, drooping mustache, deep-set gray eyes under a broad brow from which the brown hair was rapidly receding at the temples.  Pat had his father’s cleft chin, straight nose, and square forehead; but his mouth curved like his mother’s and like hers were the hazel eyes and curly dark hair.  He was a sturdy, well-set-up young American, who played good football and excellent baseball and studied fairly well—­not that he had any deep interest in books, for he meant to be a business man like his father, but his mother wished him to get good reports and a certain class-standing was necessary to keep from being debarred sports.

Mr. Patterson was glad that Pat liked his school, glad that he did not like it so well as to regret going home.  “After all, there is nothing like an American school for an American boy,” he said.

“And baseball the way we play it at home is the thing,” declared Pat.

They made plans for their voyage the next week, and then Mr. Patterson rose to go, saying he’d be in again, but couldn’t tell just when, as he’d be pretty busy, examining some new motor machinery.

“Have you been to see little sister, father?” inquired Pat.

Mr. Patterson looked at his son without replying.  How he had hoped there would be a little sister—­that his home would ring with the music of young, happy voices!  How sad and silent it was now!  He pulled himself together as Pat impatiently repeated the question.

“Father, have you been to see little sister?—­Anne Lewis, you know.  Mother said she was to be my little sister—­and I must be good to her.  She’s a number one little chap.  Can throw a ball straight and can reel off dandy tales that she makes up herself.  Don’t you think she’s cute-looking?”

“I haven’t seen her, son,” answered Mr. Patterson.  “Fact is, I had really forgotten that child.  I must see about her.”

Anne, shy and silent always with strangers, entered the drawing-room slowly.  She put her hand timidly into Mr. Patterson’s, then sat down, very prim and uncomfortable, with her legs dangling from the edge of the chair and answered his questions in a shy undertone and the fewest possible words.  Mr. Patterson was hardly less embarrassed than she.

After he asked about her health and her studies, and how she liked school, and if she would be glad to go back to America, and told her that he had seen Pat and Pat had asked about her, there seemed really nothing else to say.  It was a relief when Mademoiselle Duroc entered the room and asked if Anne might be excused to practise a marching song.

“I beg ten thousand pardons for the interruption,” she said.  “But monsieur understands, I am quite sure.  The finals of school approach so rapidly and we would not have the pupils fail to do credit to the kind patrons.”