My dear Teddy,—If you haven't entirely forsaken us, can't you come over and spend the afternoon and dine here? We both of us miss your calls, Will especially, since he hasn't been so well; and we can't think why you have turned the cold shoulder to us. I wanted to send for you, yesterday; but Will wouldn't let me, for fear you had something else to do. To-day, I haven't told him, so he won't be disappointed.Come if you can, dear, and stay to dinner with us. Will is so blue that he needs you to brighten him up, now he is on his back again.
My dear Teddy,—If you haven't entirely forsaken us, can't you come over and spend the afternoon and dine here? We both of us miss your calls, Will especially, since he hasn't been so well; and we can't think why you have turned the cold shoulder to us. I wanted to send for you, yesterday; but Will wouldn't let me, for fear you had something else to do. To-day, I haven't told him, so he won't be disappointed.
Come if you can, dear, and stay to dinner with us. Will is so blue that he needs you to brighten him up, now he is on his back again.
Sincerely,Jessie Farrington.
This was the note which Patrick had brought over, that morning, and which Theodora now sat twisting in her fingers, while she anxiously wondered what it all meant. She had not heard that Billy was worse, and it was a week since she had seen him, for she still lacked courage to show him her shorn head. She dreaded histeasing; most of all she dreaded the questions he must inevitably ask. Her own family was bad enough; she felt that she could not face him, if once he knew the secret of her missing locks.
Never was a hasty, hot-tempered act more thoroughly punished than this. There had been little need for the doctor or his wife to add a word. Theodora's sorrow and shame were intense; intense, too, was her power of self-abasement. For a week, she spent most of the time in her own room, as if she feared to meet the eyes of her family; and, in this self-imposed isolation, it chanced that she had heard no mention of the Farringtons.
It had taken repeated calls to bring Theodora down to breakfast, the morning after her outbreak. In all her after-life, she never forgot the exclamations of horror and surprise which greeted her when she appeared, half-defiant, half-sulky, and altogether shamefaced. For a few moments, there was a babel of comment; then Mrs. McAlister rose and took her hand.
"Theodora, dear," she said gently; "come into my room, and tell me all about it."
The door closed behind them, and for two hours they were alone together. What passedbetween them, no one else ever knew. When the long talk was ended, and Theodora, clinging to her new mother just as she had been wont to cling to her own mother, years ago, had sobbed till she could sob no more, Mrs. McAlister left her and went to her husband.
"She's punished enough, Jack," she said to him. "There wasn't much need for me to say anything; but I think perhaps this has given me my opportunity. I've come closer to the child than I ever dared to hope, and, with Heaven's help, I mean to stay there."
Her husband bent over her.
"You're good to my naughty girl, Bess," he said gently.
She smiled; but her eyes looked heavy.
"She is worth it, Jack. At heart, she is sweet and sound as a girl can be. It is only this ungovernable temper of hers. She is quick and impulsive; but she is sorry enough now. I think she won't do anything like this again. And I have promised that she sha'n't be teased about it, and, above all, that no one shall speak of the affair to the Farringtons. Can you see about it, Jack? A word from you will help me in this."
For the next few days, a spirit of heavy quietrested on the McAlister household. As a rule, Theodora was the life of the house, and now that she moped in corners, hiding her shorn head as best she could, the others were dull and listless in sympathy.
"I hate everybody," Phebe said, coming into the dining-room where Hope was arranging flowers, one morning.
"Why, Babe, what's the matter?" Hope looked up in surprise.
"Nothing, only I'm lonesome."
"Where's Allyn?"
"In the attic. He spoils everything, and I don't want to play with him. Teddy's cross, and Hu won't do anything."
There was a silence, while Hope filled a tall vase with late chrysanthemums.
"I wish I were a flower," Phebe said moodily; "only Allyn would tear it to pieces. I'd rather be a vine; that's tougher."
"What has Allyn done?" Hope asked.
"I don't tell tales, Hope McAlister." And Phebe departed with her chin in the air, leaving Hope to console herself for the rebuke with the reflection that Phebe's code of honor, in such cases, varied according to her own share of the blame.
Half an hour later, Phebe appeared to Billy, who sat in an easy-chair before a crackling fire in the library.
"Hullo, Phebe!" he exclaimed. "How you was?"
"All right. I thought I'd come over and see you, a while."
"That's good. You don't often come. Sit down, won't you?" He waved his book hospitably in the direction of a chair. "Where's Teddy? She hasn't been over here for an age."
"She's—busy." Phebe spoke with a tone of conscious mystery.
"What do you mean?" Billy turned to look at his guest in astonishment.
"Oh—nothing."
"What is the matter? Is Teddy sick?"
"No; she's all right." Phebe gave a hostile sniff.
"Then why doesn't she come over?"
"I s'pose because she doesn't want to."
"Is she mad about anything?"
Phebe shook her head mockingly. Then she rose and stood facing him, with her back to the fire.
"It's all Teddy, Teddy, Teddy!" she saidcomplainingly. "Nobody takes the trouble to talk to me, and you're just as bad as the rest of them. You needn't think your old Teddy is perfect, for she isn't."
"Maybe not; but she is a blamed sight better than you are," Billy answered more bluntly than courteously.
"'What do you think of this?' she demanded.""'What do you think of this?' she demanded."
"Is she?" Phebe plunged her hand into her pocket. "What do you think of this?" she demanded, pulling out a long brown pigtail and brandishing it before Billy's astonished eyes.
"What's that?"
"Can't you tell? You've seen it often enough."
"Let me see." Billy held out his hand.
"Sha'n't. It's Teddy's. She cut it off."
"I don't believe it. Let me take it, Babe." His tone was commanding.
For her only answer, Phebe sprang back out of his reach, caught her heel in the rug and fell. Her stiff white apron lay for an instant against the grate; the next moment, it blazed above her head.
With a swift exclamation, Billy struggled to move, to go to her assistance. Again and again he tried to wrench himself from the chair; then, with a groan, he fell back and blew along, shrill note on the silver whistle which never left him.
In a moment, it was all over. Patrick had rushed in and wrapped Phebe in a rug. Then, more frightened than hurt, the child had started for home, concocting, as she went, a plausible story to account for her charred apron. The maid came in to put the room to rights, and no one knew but Billy, as he ordered Patrick to move him to the sofa, that the sudden strain had done his invalid back a lasting injury. That was three days before, and now Theodora sat twisting his mother's note in her hands and wondering what it all meant.
The doctor was away, that day, and Theodora was too proud to ask the others any questions. She briefly explained to her mother that Mrs. Farrington had invited her to spend the afternoon and dine there, and, putting on her broadest hat, she went away across the lawn.
Patrick admitted her, and, even in the momentary glimpse she had of him, she saw that he looked unusually grave. As she entered the library, however, she was reassured, for the room looked just as usual, with Billy lying on the familiar lounge by the fire. It seemed so good to her to get back there, after her self-imposedbanishment, that, forgetful of her cropped head, she sprang forward to his side.
"Oh, Billy!"
"Have you really come, Ted? I began to think you'd cut me. Where have you been?"
"At home. But what's the matter, Billy?" For, as she took his hand, she was startled at his pallor and at the heavy shadows under his eyes.
"Only this set-back," he answered. "My back's given out again, so I can't move a bit."
"What do you mean? When was it?" She dropped down beside him, and rested her arm on the edge of the lounge.
"Didn't you know it?"
"No. When was it?"
"How queer you didn't know! It was three days ago. I strained myself somehow or other, and it kept getting worse, till it's about as bad as it was at first."
"Oh, Billy!" Theodora's overstrained nerves were giving way. After her outbreak, after the shame which had followed and the week when she had missed her friend daily and hourly, this last was too much. After all her protestations of loyalty, he had been ill andsuffering, and she had not known it, nor been near him at all.
"And you have to lie flat on your back, like this?" she demanded almost fiercely.
"Yes."
"And it hurts?"
"Yes."
"Much?"
"Some—yes, a good deal."
"All the time?"
He nodded.
"And I didn't know it, and you wanted to see me, and I never came near you." All at once, Theodora's head went down on her hands. "What did you think, Billy?"
"I thought you'd got sick of me," he answered frankly. "I couldn't see any other reason you should go back on me just now. I did miss you like fury, Ted."
"Why didn't you send word to me?"
He looked up at her with an odd little smile.
"Wait till you are flat on your back and no special good, and you'll know why."
His smile hurt her. She laid her hand on his again.
"Did you think that, Billy, really and truly?"
"Yes; that is, sometimes, but I don't now. You've stuck to me pretty well, Teddy."
"Do you know what was the reason I didn't come?" she asked impulsively.
"No."
"It was this." She pulled off her hat and sat before him, a strange, forlorn-looking Teddy, with her cropped head and tear-stained eyes.
"Jove!"
"Yes, I did it," she confessed bluntly. "I was mad at Hope and cut it off."
The boy lay staring at her in surprise. She drooped her head, unable to meet the amused look in his eyes.
"It's awful; isn't it?" she asked.
"Why, no; I don't think it is so bad," he said consolingly. "It isn't exactly pretty, and you look a good deal like a boy. When I get used to it, though, I think I shall rather like it. It seems to suit you, somehow."
She looked up gratefully.
"What a dear old fellow you are, Billy! That was the reason I didn't come. I couldn't bear to have you see me, or to know about it. Now I don't mind anybody else. I hated to have you know I was so horrid."
"You are peppery, Teddy, for a fact. Don't get in a tantrum again, or you will cut off your nose next, and that won't grow again." Hetried to laugh; but his color was coming and going, and Theodora saw that he was suffering.
She sprang up and stooped to arrange the cushions about him.
"What is it?" she asked, startled at his changing color.
"It's the old pain. It won't last but a minute."
"What does papa say?" she asked, when he was easier again.
"Nothing, except that it's a strain and that I must keep quiet."
"How long?"
"That's the worst of it." There was an utter dreariness in his tone which Theodora had never heard before. "I didn't mean you to know; but I was going to surprise you all by walking over to your house, Thanksgiving morning, and now—" he hesitated, and, boy as he was and a plucky boy, too, two great tears came and splashed down on Theodora's fingers; "now he says it will be two or three weeks before I can even sit up again."
That night, when Theodora rose to go home, she turned back to the lounge once more, after she had said good-by to Mrs. Farrington.
"You must come in, every day," Mrs. Farrington said. "Will is better already for your being here."
Theodora herself saw the change, as she bent down to shake hands. He looked brighter and better than when she had come, more animated and eager, more like his old self.
"Billy," she said steadily; "I want you to promise me something."
"What's that?"
"That, if the time ever comes again when you want me, or when I can help you, you'll send for me, without waiting. I'm only a girl, I know; but I'm better than nothing, and I never go back on my friends."
Billy smiled up at her benignly.
"No, Ted; I don't believe you ever do. And there are times when 'only a girl' is about as good as anything you can find. Come again."
"I will," she answered.
She kept her word so well that, during all Billy's imprisonment, she never failed to spend a part of each day with him. It did her good to feel that some one counted on her coming and was the better for it. It made her steadier, more reliable; and, in the long, dreary days that followed, she gained a new gentleness from her constant association with her suffering friend. There were days when he was irritable and nervous, days when he was despondent, days when he was too weak with pain to talk; but, during all this time, Theodora was loyal to him, soothing him, cheering him up and bearing his ill-temper with a gentleness which surprised even herself, ministering to his comfort and content to an unmeasured degree, and at the same time gaining a quiet womanliness which she had never known before.
And the days passed on, and the youth and the maiden reaped from them all a harvest of good, a mutual gain from their frank intimacy.
"And I want a horsey, and a wagon to hatchen on behind," Allyn shouted.
"And I must have a new sled, and I want a set of furs and a canary bird," Phebe clamored.
"Is that all?" Hubert inquired blandly. "Why not ask for a wedding gown and a pink elephant while you are about it, Babe? Don't be modest. I know what Teddy is going to have."
"Oh, what?" Theodora looked up from her game of euchre with Billy, who, promoted to his chair again, was spending the evening with the McAlisters.
"She'd better have a chunk of ice, to cool her off when she gets mad," suggested Phebe with sudden asperity, as she thought of a recent passage at arms with her elder sister.
"Phebe!" Mrs. McAlister's tone was ominous, and Phebe subsided, grumbling, while her mother rose to put Allyn to bed.
Allyn retreated to Hubert's knee and pressed his rosy cheek against that of his brother.
"No, mamma," he urged. "Can't Phebe be tendooed first?"
"Allynesque for attended to," Theodora explained to Billy, while her mother dislodged the child from his place of refuge and marched him out of the room. "But does it seem possible that Christmas comes, next week?"
"Well, yes, I think it does. This year has been long enough to make over into a dozen ordinary ones. Let's see, when is Christmas?"
"Why, don't you know? Christmas is our great day of the year, and we count the days for months ahead. This year, it will be an extra jolly one, for we want to show mamma our ways." This from Hubert, who sat with his elbow on the arm of Billy's chair, superintending his play.
"What do you do?"
"Just what everybody else does, I suppose; give presents and make a row generally."
"Hubert, what will Billy think of us?" Hope interposed. "It's this way: mamma, our own mother, always said that Christmas was the day when we all should be children together, and play plays and have a grand frolic. Yearsago, when Hu and Teddy and I were little bits of children, we began having our basket, and we have kept it up ever since."
"We do all the things, jokes and presents and all, in bundles," Theodora said, taking up the story in her eagerness; "and we put them all in this basket. It is an old clothes-basket, large as the house and broken, but we never change it. And then we draw them out, one at a time."
"It's covered, you know, and we just fish under the cover, so as not to see what comes. They used to begin with me; but Allyn is the baby, and has the first chance now." In her interest, Phebe quite forgot to resent it when Theodora pulled her down into her lap.
Billy sat looking from one to another of the group, wondering to see the faces brighten and grow eager as the talk ran on.
"It sounds good fun," he said rather wishfully, as soon as there was a pause. "I suppose it's because there are such a lot of you."
"The more the better, of course," Hope said. "We always have Susan and James come in to look on, and even Mulvaney has his new ribbon and a bone. He has learned to know the basket, and he lies down beside it as soon as it is brought in to be filled."
"When do you do it?"
"Christmas eve," Hubert answered. "We never could stand it till Christmas day. We always rush through supper, Christmas eve, to be ready as soon as we can. You should see our house when we get everything out of the basket."
"I wish I could."
"What do you do?" Phebe demanded.
"Why, we give presents at breakfast; that's all. Of course it will be different, this year. Papa was here, last Christmas. He gave me my watch then."
"Oh!" Phebe became round-eyed with admiration. "Did he give you that? I should think you would miss him."
Hope came to the rescue.
"It will be lonely, this year. I remember how it was, after mamma died. We didn't want to have any Christmas; but papa said she would rather we kept up the old ways, so we did just as we always had done."
"I wish we did things the way you do." Billy pushed his hair impatiently away from his face. "You don't know how it seems to a fellow to be alone. It is no sort of fun."
"Adopt us," Theodora suggested, laughing.
Billy flashed at her a swift glance which told, plainly as words, how gladly he would carry out her suggestion.
Passing through the hall, Mrs. McAlister had heard the children's talk. A little later, she knocked at the door of her husband's office. The doctor pushed aside the sheets of the essay he was writing for a medical journal, and rose to greet his wife.
"Well, Bess, the sanctum is glad to see you."
"Am I interrupting?" she asked, as she sat down by the table.
"Not a bit. You never do."
"So glad, for I want to talk, Jack."
"What now? Is Phebe in mischief, or is Teddy proving obstreperous?"
"Neither; it's only this." And she repeated the substance of the children's conversation. "Now are you ready to do some missionary work, Jack?"
"Of course; anything you like. What is it?"
"May Jessie and Will come to your Christmas eve?"
"Ours," he corrected gently.
"No, yours. You know I've never been here for it, and it is all new to me. I don't wantto crowd your good time; but the boy is so lonely."
"Have him, of course. The Savins is large enough to hold a few more, and he needs all the fun he can get," the doctor said heartily. "There's only one thing I am afraid of."
His wife looked up quickly.
"I thought that all over before I came to you, Jack; but I have known Jessie longer than you have, and I know she won't misunderstand us. She knows we can't give expensive presents, and she will care, as we do, for the fun and the Christmas spirit. I know she will be glad to come, if only for Billy's sake."
But Mrs. Farrington demurred a little, the next day, when the plan was suggested to her.
"I have just promised Will to have you all over here," she said. "Still, if you all will promise to come here for Christmas dinner and a bran pie afterwards, Billy and I will come to your basket. We are so lonely that it is a deed of charity to take us in."
For the next week, mystery lurked in every corner of the McAlister house. With three novices to be trained in their Christmas rite, Hope and Theodora and Hubert felt that this basket must surpass all those of previous years,and they ransacked their brains, their house, and the shops for the jokes and nonsensical offerings which added spice to their simple presents. If the Christmas spirit of happiness and good-will were the true test, the McAlisters lived up to the full tradition of the day. Gifts simple and elaborate, hoary jokes and brand-new ones, quips and cranks of every description, were enclosed in the bundles which went into the shabby old basket, and the only clue to the possible contents of the bundles lay in the fact that, the older the joke, the more fresh and dainty was its outward disguise.
The basket stood in a deep bay-window; beside it on an easel was the portrait of the children's own mother, placed there and wreathed in Christmas greens by Mrs. McAlister's own hands. Old Susan had told her that it had stood there in past years, and, that afternoon, the doctor had come in, to find her bending over to wreathe it with holly and trailing pine.
"It's like you, Bess," he said. "The children will be so happy. They felt that Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without this."
Supper was a hurried meal that night, and it was still early when they gathered in theparlor, with Mulvaney beside the basket and Susan in the doorway, to wait for their guests.
"Oh, I can't wait," Phebe wailed. "I know such lots of things in there. I put in four bundles for Hu, and seven for Allyn, and two for papa, only one's broken, and two for Teddy."
"Let me see." Hubert counted on his fingers. "I put in six for Ted, no, seven, and four for Hope, and nine for Allyn."
"And me?" Phebe pranced impatiently.
"Oh, Babe, I forgot you."
"Hush, Babe; there's Billy's chair," Hope said, endeavoring to suppress her young sister.
"Did you know Patrick brought over a bundle, Hu?" Theodora whispered. "I saw mamma slying it into the house. 'Twas a big one, too."
"Really?" Hubert tried to look as innocent as if Billy had not consulted him about Theodora's Christmas gift.
"Yes, I'm so glad now that I hemstitched that handkerchief. It is fairly covered with my gore where I pricked myself; but he won't be critical, I hope."
The babel of greeting and chatter was hushed, as Hope took her seat at the piano and the children gathered around her to sing their favorite carol. The last note had scarcely died away when Allyn, at a signal from Hubert, gave a joyous shriek and plunged upon the basket.
"One at a time," Hope cautioned him; "and bring the bundle to sister, so she can read the writing on it."
The first package chanced to contain his much-desired horsey, and he retired to a corner to embrace it, while Phebe and then Theodora took their turns at drawing.
"Draw for me, please," Billy asked Theodora, when his turn came.
"Not a bit of it. You must do your part." And she had whisked him across the room and landed him beside the basket, before he could realize her intention.
For two hours, the fun was fast and furious. Mulvaney, on the floor in a nest of papers, was wrestling with a vast bone, Mrs. Farrington was admiring a bit of Hope's dainty handiwork, and Hubert was trying hard to realize that at last he was the proud owner of a watch. Everyone was happy, and Hope and Theodora congratulated themselves upon the success of their Christmas frolic.
"It's your turn to draw, Billy." And Theodora rolled him across the floor to the fast-emptying basket.
"Bah! I can't reach it. Get the one in the corner, Ted. It's a big square one."
"Is this it?"
"Yes." Billy took it and read the label.Theodora, with love from Babe.
"Why, Babe dear, you gave me the gloves."
Phebe flushed.
"It's probably some grind on you, Teddy," Hubert suggested, as his sister tore away the wrappers.
Inside was a box, then another. Phebe smiled in conscious satisfaction, while Theodora opened one layer after another of the papers within and at last drew out a long flexible bundle.
"Phebe, you dear, it is the new belt I've been wanting," she said.
Phebe began to look rather uneasy.
"Wait and see," she advised. "It may not be as nice as you think it's going to be."
With eager hands, Theodora unrolled the tissue papers, while the others gathered round to see what was inside. Then there came a sudden hush of surprise and consternation. Out from the papers had slipped a long, softbraid of brown hair, and, with a startled sob, Theodora had buried her face in her hands. The next instant, Hubert's hand descended on Phebe's cheek with a ringing blow.
For a few moments, it seemed that the evening was to end in dismal failure. Then Mrs. Farrington, with her arm about Theodora's waist, marched her across the room to the basket to renew the drawing, and soon the little incident was apparently forgotten. Later, when the merriment was subsiding, Mrs. Farrington missed Theodora and went in search of her. She found her in the library, standing alone before the open fire.
"It was too bad, dear," Mrs. Farrington said. "Phebe didn't realize what she was doing, of course; but it was hard for you. But I want to thank you for the pleasant evening and for the pleasant months Billy has had with you. This little package was to go in the pie, to-morrow; but I wanted instead to give it to you when we were alone, so I could say to you how I appreciate all you have done for my boy."
And Theodora, as she looked at the little sapphire on her finger, felt that not all the Phebes in creation could spoil her merry Christmas.
A week later, she went racing across the lawn to the Farringtons', with a long brown bundle over her shoulder.
"Let me in quick, Patrick," she cried, as she dashed through the door. "Happy New Year, Billy! I've brought you a New Year's present. I said I must be the one to bring it, and papa is coming over in a few minutes to teach you to use it." And, with a clatter and a bang, she cast a pair of crutches on the floor at Billy's feet.
Billy sat in his chair before the McAlisters' front steps. Theodora sat beside him on the steps, with her chin in her hands. Though it was late in January, the midday sun was warm around them, and they were basking in it like two young turtles.
"I know," Theodora was saying restively; "but I want to do something really and truly useful, something that will help on the world. Here I am, sixteen years old, and I've never been of the least use to anybody."
"How about me?" Billy suggested, luxuriously stretching and then clasping his hands at the back of his head.
"You? Oh, you don't count."
"Thanks."
Theodora sprang up and whirled the chair to the gate and back again to the steps.
"What a tease you are, Billy! Next time, if you don't behave, I'll tip you out. You know what I mean. I get just as much fun out ofthis as you do. What I want is to help on the masses."
"Rats!" Billy remarked profanely.
"Not rats at all. You don't need me; they do."
"So do I. Who takes me all over town?"
"That's selfish, Billy. They need me more than you do, then."
"No, they don't either. Who'd take me?"
"Patrick. Besides, you'll take yourself soon, and then you won't want me any more."
There was a little involuntary note of sadness in her tone, and Billy smiled to himself, as he shifted his position to face her.
"What's started you to talking all this flummery, Ted?" he asked bluntly, heedless, in true boy fashion, of the vague aspirations and aims of sweet sixteen. "I thought you had too good sense to get sentimental."
The word stung Theodora, and she started up abruptly.
"Let's go to the shore," she said shortly.
"Aren't you too tired? I am growing fat and heavy, you know."
For a week, now, Billy had been installed at the doctor's, while his mother had been calledaway by the illness of her only brother. The arrangement suited them all, Billy and Theodora even more than the others. The two friends never seemed to weary of the long hours they spent together, never appeared to be at a loss for subjects of conversation. For the most part, Hubert was with them; but there were times, like the present, when his other friends demanded his whole attention, and Billy and Theodora were left to each other's society. Hope was absorbed in other interests, though she was always kind and considerate of their guest; and, by a tacit consent, Phebe's company was shunned rather than courted.
The winter had been good to Billy. Day by day, his strength was coming back to him, slowly and by almost imperceptible stages, it is true; but by looking back from month to month, they could see his steady progress. In his better days, he could walk about the rooms now, and even this slight advance had put fresh life into him.
"Some day, I may begin to have a little respect for myself again," he had said to Hubert, the day after his first expedition across the library. "I've been like a rag doll for so long that I began to think I'd never stir alone anymore. Now it looks more as if I might be somebody in time, and I can wait."
"Strikes me you've been waiting about long enough," Hubert returned impatiently. "I wish you'd hurry up and come to life. There's fun enough to be had, as soon as you're on your legs again."
"I should think it would seem queer to you to see me walking," Billy observed reflectively.
"It does. I can't make it seem a part of you, somehow. I'm so used to the chair," Theodora said, as she joined the group. "After all, Billy, I think I shall miss it a little."
Well she might, for by this time the chair had become a part of her life. Leaving Patrick to his own devices, the two young people had explored the town, wandering here and there as Billy's curiosity or Theodora's whim took them. There were days when Billy was too weak for his ride, there were days when Theodora was too busy with other things to take him out during the warmer part of the day; but, as a rule, three or four times a week they wandered away in search of fresh scenes and an occasional adventure.
"By the way, Ted, how comes on the story?" Billy asked, as they drew near the steps oncemore and Mulvaney came forward to meet them.
"Seventeen chapters are done," she answered, slackening her pace a little.
"Moses! How many do you expect to have?"
"I don't know. They seem to count up awfully fast. I've only just come to the first of the lovering. I can't seem to make much of that. I do wish I knew how people make love."
"Perhaps you'll find out, some day," Billy suggested.
But Theodora frowned on him.
"Don't be silly. I'm not that kind, nor you either. I wish you could help me out on it. Don't people ever—"
"Collaborate? Yes. When are you going to read it to me?"
"Do you really want it?"
"Yes."
"Well, to-night, perhaps, if we can get away by ourselves."
However, fate willed otherwise.
"Theodora," the doctor said, as they were leaving the dinner-table, that day; "there's an errand I'd like you to do for me, about four o'clock. I promised to send some medicine down to a house in Water Street for a sick baby. Can you take it down? It's nothing catching," he added reassuringly to his wife.
"I'll go. Can I take Billy?"
"Better not. It's a wretched region for wheels, and you might have an upset," the doctor advised. "Come to the office, soon after four, and I'll have it ready. You're getting to be your father's right-hand man, Teddy." And he rested his hand affectionately on her shoulder before he left the room.
A month before that time, Mrs. Farrington had received a visit from an old college friend, one of the energetic workers in the university settlements, and her stories of life in the slums had made a strong impression upon Theodora's mind. For the time being, other interests lost their charm. Theodora was content to sit by the hour and listen to the experiences so remote from her own sheltered life. She was as impressionable as most girls of her age; more than most girls, she retained her impressions, dwelling upon them and magnifying them until they seemed to become less a day-dream than a part of her actual experience.
For the past three weeks, she had been filledwith vague, restless longings to have a share in the vast work of social reform; most of all, her warm young heart turned to the neglected children. It was the same impulse of protection which had first roused her interest in Billy Farrington, the helpless invalid; and now, had Billy been a less well-tried friend, he might have found himself forsaken to make room for this new hobby of Theodora. As it was, she merely used him for a safety-valve, and poured into his ears mysterious hints of the career for which she was temporarily yearning.
The medicine was delivered, and, in the gathering dusk, Theodora's face was turned towards home. It was a part of the town into which she rarely penetrated,—a network of squalid streets near the water front; and, a month ago, she would have swept through them with her nose in the air. Now, however, she looked to the left and the right, as she walked onward, hoping almost against hope that her secret prayers would be answered, and that, even in this hasty progress, she might see some work ready for her hand. Providence, always kind, was in a benign mood, and her desire was fulfilled with unexpected promptness.
Down the street towards her came a forlornlittle figure. It was a child of nine, a girl whose grimy face was streaked and swollen with tears, whose red hood was faded to a dull yellowish shade, whose coarse gray coat was so many sizes too large for her that the sleeves were folded back to allow her blue, chapped hands to come forth to the light of day and to their destined usefulness. Theodora's heart gave a quick bound, and, stepping forward, she bent over the wailing child.
"What is the matter?" she asked.
The child stopped sobbing and blinked up at her, disclosing a face of unmistakably Keltic ancestry.
"What is the matter?" Theodora repeated.
"Huh?"
Theodora experienced a momentary shock. Not thus had her dreamed-of foundlings answered to her imaginary queries. She rallied and reiterated her question. The child's tears fell again.
"I'm—I'm losted, and I'm tired and so hungry."
Even in this woful climax, Theodora noted the gurgle of the child's sobs. She told herself that it was like water bubbling from a bottle, a large earthen bottle. Then she reproached herself for her misplaced sense of humor.
There followed a little question, a little answer, a little consolation. Then, before she quite realized what she was doing, Theodora was walking rapidly towards home, with brotherly love swelling in her heart, and the child's smutty hand clasped in her woollen mitten. She had delayed longer than she knew, the walk home was long, and before she reached there, the twilight had quite fallen, the house was brightly lighted, and the family were gathered in the dining-room.
"Dear me, they're all at supper!" she said to herself, as she went up the steps. "Never mind, little girl," she added, with a conscious patronage which not even her sympathy could keep down. "They're having their supper now. I'll take you up to my room, and, as soon as they're through, I'll give you something to eat."
Her feminine intuition told her that the child's welcome would not be so warm if she were presented at the supper-table. For a moment, she hesitated what disposition to make of her charge. Then, herself hungry and eager to get to the table and tell the story of heradventure, she led the way to her room and popped the child into her own dainty bed.
Mrs. McAlister looked up as Theodora entered the room.
"Teddy, dear, this is my brother Archie, come at last.""Teddy, dear, this is my brother Archie, come at last."
"You are late, Teddy, and I was just getting anxious about you. Archie, this is my twin daughter, Theodora. Teddy dear, this is my dear brother Archie, come at last." There was an exultant note in Mrs. McAlister's voice which Theodora had never heard before.
Theodora gave a quick glance at the stranger who sat between her stepmother and Hope, and the first look told her that she had found a friend, one who would be true and loyal as a man could be. There was nothing especially distinctive about Archie Holden. He was tall and blond and athletic, sufficiently good-looking, and with easy, off-hand manners. But his keen blue eyes, the curve of his little blond mustache, above all, the grip of his hand and the ring of his voice suited Theodora, and, long before supper was over, she had forgotten her protégée in the excitement of the unexpected addition to their family circle. It was fortunate, perhaps, that the child, more tired than hungry, had fallen asleep in the midst of Theodora's soft white bed.
As they were leaving the table, Mrs. McAlister laid a detaining hand on Theodora's arm.
"Teddy, I've had to put Archie into your room, to-night. Can you sleep in the little back chamber? I am sorry to turn you out, but Billy has the spare room, and I didn't like to put Archie with him. Do you mind, dear? It's only for one night; then we can make some other arrangement."
"I don't care at all," Theodora answered readily. "It wouldn't do to put him in with Billy. When did Mr. Holden come?"
"At five. It was such a surprise, too. You know we didn't expect him for a week; but the heavy snow sent the party in, and he is to have a vacation till the middle of March. What do you think of my little brother, Teddy?"
"I think he's splendid," Theodora replied so emphatically that her mother smiled.
"Run along after him, then," she said. "I want you and Hope to see that his visit is a good one. Hope took your things into the back room, Teddy, so you'll find everything ready for you at bedtime."
To Theodora's eager young mind, it seemed that the evening was the shortest she had ever spent, and, when ten o'clock struck, she wasstill sitting perched on the arm of Hope's chair, while she listened to Archie's stirring tales of life in camp and field, in mountain and cañon and desert. Then there was an interruption, for the bell rang and a voice was heard asking for the doctor. Archie rose.
"Another patient, doctor? I believe I'll go to bed. Three nights in a sleeper are too much for me. No, don't come with me, Bess; I know the way perfectly."
However, Mrs. McAlister went to his door with him. As she came downstairs, her husband met her in the hall.
"I don't quite comprehend this mystery, Bess," he said, while an anxious frown puckered his brows. "There's a policeman here that accuses me of having abducted a child. There's one missing from Water Street, it seems, and he claims that she is here in this house."
"What?"
"'Tis a remarkable story. I can't seem to get at the bottom of it. He doesn't know me; and he says his orders are not to go away without the child. I can't convince him that there's no child here."
Just then they both started violently, for adouble sound broke on their ears, a long-drawn shriek as of a child in pain, followed by Archie's voice, loud and remorseful,—
"Oh, by George!"
An instant later, Theodora appeared on the landing, ejaculating,—
"Gracious me! I forgot her."
"Theodora, what does this mean?" the doctor demanded breathlessly, as he rushed up the stairs. Then, at the open door, he paused in sheer amazement. In the middle of the floor stood Archie Holden, staring at the bed with a face devoid of all expression. Sitting up in the bed and staring back at him with a face of injured innocence and pain, was an unwholesome child of Keltic extraction and unneat exterior, with a dingy knitted hood in lieu of nightcap, and two chapped hands appearing from two vast gray sleeves.
Archie appeared to think that it devolved upon him to explain the situation.
"I'm sorry," he said meekly. "You see, I didn't turn up the gas at first, but I just sat down on the edge of the bed to take off my shoes. I didn't know this—this young person was here, and I suppose I sat on her. Butreally I can't imagine where she came from. I didn't bring her."
"Theodora!" said the doctor, sternly.
But Theodora had vanished, to hide her head from the sight of her protégée, and from the merriment shining in Archie's blue eyes.
"Do you often do that kind of thing, Miss Teddy?"
Theodora, with her hands full of books, was passing through the lower hall. At the sudden question, she glanced up to see Archie Holden leaning on the banisters and looking down at her.
"What thing?" she asked.
"Oh, adopting stray babies. You gave me a fine fright, last night."
Theodora blushed. Then, as she met his merry eyes, she burst out laughing.
"Wasn't it awful? I put the child to bed and promised her some supper, and then I forgot her."
"And I sat on her," Archie supplemented. "I don't know which of us was the more astonished, she or I. What were you going to do with her?"
"Why, you see," Theodora dropped her books on the seat by the staircase and settled herselfbeside them; "you see, it was my first experience with slumming."
"With what?"
"Don't you know? Or don't you have any slums in Montana? Everybody does it here, and it's beautiful."
"What's the usualmodus operandi?"
"The what? Talk English, please."
"How do you go at it?" Archie sat down on the top step, to talk at his ease.
"Oh, they go to see poor people, and take them food and soap and madonnas and fumigate them."
"The madonnas?"
"No, the people. It does them ever so much good. Mrs. Farrington, Billy's mother, had a friend here that did it, and she told us all about it."
"I begin to comprehend," Archie said gravely, as he looked down at the animated face below him. "And does it belong to the plan to bring them home and hide them in the guests' beds?"
"How was I to know you were here?" Theodora demanded. "Didn't you take us all by surprise?"
"I meant to surprise Bess, and I rather flattermyself I succeeded. I say, Miss Teddy, what relation are we, anyhow?"
"Hm-m." Theodora pondered on the matter. "Cousins? No; I suppose you're my uncle. Uncle Archie. How respectful that sounds!"
Archie made a grimace of disgust.
"It suggests carpet slippers and an ivory-headed cane and a bandanna. I don't believe I care to be related at all, if that's the way you're going to work it."
Theodora laughed wickedly. She was keen enough to see that the young man was nettled by the implied addition to his years, and she was too much of a tease to allow her opportunity to slip by, unheeded. She gave him a mocking bow.
"I'm sorry you don't care to claim us, Uncle Archie," she said, as she rose. "Still, you can't expect us to call mamma's only brother Mr. Holden."
"Call me Archie, then."
"How disrespectful! No, Uncle Archie is quite nice and proper."
"I won't answer. Where are you going?"
"To do my lessons with Billy. We have a tutor." Theodora spoke with a sudden air of complacency.
"What a bother! I wanted you. Do you do them, every day?"
"Yes, every morning, only we're generally at Billy's. What did you want?"
"Nothing much; only I brought on some stuff for Bess and for—my new nephews and nieces, and I thought, if you weren't busy, I'd bring it down."
"How lovely! I'll wait."
"Oh, Ted-dy!" Billy's voice, though distant, was emphatic and distinct. "Do hurry up!"
She gave a longing glance back at the young man at the top of the stairway.
"I can't wait," she said regretfully. "I don't want to go; but—it's Billy, you see."
Archie liked her loyalty.
"No matter; they can wait till noon. Farewell, my niece, and mind your teacher."
"I will, Uncle Archie."
Two months before this time, soon after Billy had begun to rally from the mysterious strain to his back, Mrs. Farrington had appeared in the doctor's office, one evening.
"As usual, I am asking a favor," she said. "At last, I have succeeded in getting a really good tutor for Billy. The man was instructor in Yale till his health failed, and he is highlyrecommended to me. Billy is bright and well advanced for his age, so I think he and Hubert must be doing about the same work. It is so lonely for him, do you suppose Hubert, or Theodora, or both of them, would be willing to study with him, to keep him company?"
The matter was settled in family council, that same evening. Though it seemed to Dr. McAlister too fine an opportunity to be lost, he left it entirely to the choice of the children. Theodora accepted the new plan with prompt delight. Hubert hesitated, chose the tutor, chose to stay in school with his boy friends, dreaded to be separated from Theodora, and finally decided to remain in the school. Two months later, Theodora was reading the Anabasis, while Hubert was still toiling over the intricacies of the irregular verb.
The tutor proved to be a good one, and, from the start, it was a close race between Theodora and Billy. He was eighteen months the older; she was in perfect health, and her lithe young body held an equally active mind. Moreover, she was determined not to be outdone by Billy, nor yet be a drag upon him, so she fell to work with a will and accomplished wonders, while Mr. Brown daily rejoiced that his lines had fallen in such pleasant places.
At dinner-time, Archie appeared, laden with his offerings for his adopted family circle.
"I shot this beast, myself, Bess," he said, as he threw a great rug at her feet. "He was an eight-hundred-pound grizzly who liked the smell of our supper. If you feel of his head, you can find the holes where I shot him. Tom Keyes and I tracked him by the blood on the snow, and we finally cornered him. I thought Hubert might like these antlers, and here's some trumpery for the others."
As he spoke, he tossed a handful of little packages about the group, which quickly became clamorous in its joy. Theodora looked up from her great nugget mounted on a slender pin, to discover that Billy too had been included in the frolic, and she shot an approving glance at Archie just as Allyn climbed to the young man's knee.
"Fank you," the child said, with a sounding kiss. "I love you, and I wish you'd come again and bring me nonner engine, Uncle Archie."
Over Allyn's head, Archie made a gesture of defiance at Theodora.
"That's your work, Miss Ted. I owe you one for that."
"This one?" she asked, holding up the pin."It's beautiful, Uncle Archie, and I am in love with it already."
For the next month a spirit of revelry appeared to fill the McAlister household. It was an ideal New England winter, and plenty of snow and cold weather kept the young people out of doors. The McAlisters taught Archie to skate; he taught them to run on snowshoes; they had merry coasting parties and long sleigh-rides by day. In the evenings, the Farringtons usually joined them for games, chafing-dish suppers, impromptu theatricals, and the thousand and one other amusements of a winter evening. Strange to say, the closest intimacy sprang up between the invalid and the energetic young engineer, and Billy, who at first had jealously regretted Archie's coming, found that his own range of sports was broadened by the strength and care of the young man's arm and eye.
They were all down on the ice, one moonlight evening, Archie and the McAlisters taking turns in pushing the skating-chair in which Billy sat, wrapped in furs. Hubert was at the back of the chair, leaning on the bar, while the others stood gathered about, resting from a network of figure eights.
"To-morrow night, the moon will be full,"Theodora said, as she rubbed her nose with the back of her mitten. "I do so hope it will be good skating, for it will be about our last chance. Next night, we have to go to that stupid old party, and, the night after, we give our play."
"I'm getting to the end of my nights," Archie said regretfully. "I had a letter from the chief, to-day, and he wants me to report to him, the first."
"So soon as that?" Hope's tone was remonstrant, as she looked at him with startled eyes. "You didn't mean to go so early."
"No; I meant to stay till the fifteenth; but this will take me off, next week."
"Does mamma know?" Theodora asked.
"Not yet. Don't tell her, please, till to-morrow. She always hates to have me start off again, when I've been home."
"No wonder," Theodora said impulsively. "You aren't half so bad as you might be, Uncle Archie."
He bowed low.
"Thanks awfully. But I am freezing. I'll race you two girls to the dead pine and back."
"All right. You be umpire, Billy. What's the prize?"
"A mate to your nugget. Come on."
With a laughing word to Billy, they swept off up the pond, while the ice rang hard under their long, swinging strokes. Archie led; but Hope and Theodora were close behind him when he reached the old pine-tree. As they turned to face the sheet of silver light reflected back from the surface of the ice, Theodora gasped with the beauty of it all, and with the tense physical excitement of the moment. For one instant, she seemed possessed with the glorious madness of living, with the splendor of the night, with the cold, sharp air and the exhilaration of the exercise. The next moment, as she mustered all her strength to pass Archie, she saw him stagger and fall. He had skated on a half-buried stick, and the sudden check to his progress had thrown him headlong on the ice.
There was an instantaneous hush, when it seemed to Theodora that all the glory had died out of the universe. When she regained her scattered senses, Hubert had whirled Billy up to the spot, while Hope, quiet and dainty as ever, but a shade paler than usual, sat on the ice with Archie's head resting in her lap and her handkerchief pressed against the cut in his forehead.
"Be quiet, Teddy," she said gently. "Archieisn't dead, dear. I think it has only stunned him a little."
With a gasp of shame, Theodora realized that she had been crying aloud in her excitement, while the blurred scratches on the ice showed that she had been flying about the group in a futile distraction. With a groan of self-disgust, she dropped down on the footboard of Billy's chair.
"I didn't mean to," she said contritely. "How can you always know just what to do, Hope? I wish I didn't act like an ape, whenever I'm frightened. But do you think he's much hurt?"
Archie answered the question by opening his eyes. He looked up at Hope for a minute, first in wonder at his position, then with an expression of infinite content, as he saw her pretty face bent over him and read the anxiety in her eyes. Then his own eyes grew merry, as he glanced at the tearful, dishevelled Theodora.
"I'm not dead yet," he said. "You came near beating me; but you haven't done it yet, my fair niece." He tried to rise as he spoke.
Hope's hand on his forehead grew a shade heavier.
"Wait a little," she said. "You've cut yourself, and I want it to stop bleeding, first. Aren't you comfortable?"
For a second time, Archie looked up into her eyes.
"Perfectly," he answered briefly.
The pause which followed was an expressive one. Hubert broke it.
"Ye-es," he said critically, as he bent over Archie for a moment; "you aren't looking your very prettiest, Archie. When you do get up, I advise you to go in search of a mirror."
"Hu!"
But Hope's remonstrance came too late, for Archie had already sat up.
Hubert helped him to take off his skates, and the little party started for home. It was the same walk they had taken many times before; but there was a difference now. Instead of going up the hill in a merry group, with Archie pushing the chair and Theodora prancing along by his side, Billy and the twins took the lead, and Archie and Hope, in the shadow of the trees, followed along slowly, very slowly.