“I haven’t the slightest idea what you are talking about.”  But she looked at the letter and not at him.

“Do you see those water-marks?” he demanded.

“Yes.  You will find them in a thousand tablets like this.  I bought a dozen of them in New York; cheap and handy.”

Warrington’s confidence in his discovery began to shake.  He braced himself and took a bold course.

“Patty, you wrote that letter; you know you did.  You wrote it in New York, the day you bought the tablets.”

“I?”

“Yes.  Confess.”

“My dear Mr. Warrington, you must prove it,” lightly.  “It would not be proper for me to admit that I had been so foolish as to write a letter like that.”

“But you’ve praised it!”

“Simply because praising it would please you; for no other reason.”

“Did you, or did you not write it?”

“Find out.  You must prove that I wrote it.  Certainly I have nothing to confess.”

“You will not answer me one way or the other?”

“No.”

“If you had not written it you would.”

“I don’t believe I shall sing this morning,” rising.

“And I have wondered a thousand times who could have written it.  And all the time it was you.”

“Nor play billiards,” went on Patty.

“If only I were all you hitherto believed me to be!”

“Nor fish to-morrow morning.”

“This letter has been like an anchor.  Immediately upon receiving it I began to try to live better.”

“Nor fish the day after to-morrow.”

“And I had forgotten all about Jack’s having a sister!”

“Something I shall neither forget nor forgive.  And if you persist in accusing me of writing that letter, I promise not to fish again while you are here.”  She walked toward the door, her chin held high.

“You wrote it.  Come and sing.  I’ll say nothing more about it.  There’s nothing more to be said.”  He carelessly picked up a book and looked at the fly-leaf.  “From Sister Patty to Brother John,” he read.  There was no mistake now.  He laughed.  Patty turned.  “The writing is the same.”

“Is it?”

“Will you sing?”

No answer.

“Please.”

Patty stood between the door that led to the veranda and the door that led to the music-room—­between Charybdis and Scylla, as it were, for she knew he would follow her whichever way she went.  She turned into the music-room.

“Thanks,” he said.

The days passed all too quickly for Warrington.  He walked in the golden glow of his first romance, that romance which never leaves us till life itself departs.  He spoke no word of his love, but at times there was something in his voice that thrilled Patty and subdued her elfish gaiety.  Some girls would have understood at once, but Patty was different.  She was happy one moment, and troubled the next, not knowing the reason.  She was not analytical; there was no sophistry in her young heart.  She did not dream that this man loved her; she was not vain enough for that.