Theodora reached here safely. My brother worse. Send for her.
Theodora reached here safely. My brother worse. Send for her.
Jessie Farrington.
This was the telegram which was delivered at the doctor's door, two days later. It came in upon an anxious household, for up to that time they had been able to gain no clue to Theodora's disappearance. Billy alone had had an inkling of the truth, but he dared not hint it to the rest. It was only an inkling, vague and groundless, and he felt that it would do no good to speak of it. At best, he would be accused of urging his friend to take the sudden journey, and he was unwilling to increase the suspicion which already lay heavy upon him.
He knew, however, that Theodora's departure had something to do with himself. Her last words seemed to him, as he went back to them, to convey no doubtful hint of her intentions. He had had no suspicion at the time; but now he realized how like her impulsive loyalty itwould be to go flying off somewhere, anywhere, to get help for him, to find some way of putting an end to the wretched situation. He was thoroughly sorry for her absence, and uneasy about her; yet he felt little alarm, for he was perfectly convinced of her ability to look out for herself. Moreover, he was human enough to watch the distraction of the family with a certain amusement. He was sure that Theodora would turn up soon, alive and well, and full of entertaining stories of her adventure. Meanwhile, it was their turn to be anxious.
Then a new anxiety came into the household. Phebe, who had been nervous and irritable, all the day after Theodora's disappearance, grew feverish at night. Her father made a short examination, pronounced her to be suffering from the epidemic of chicken pox which had infested the schools of late, and ordered her to bed. She obeyed him by going to her room, escaping by way of the back stairs and taking a long walk in the twilight with Isabel St. John, with whom lately it had been necessary for Phebe to hold many secret conferences. The next morning, the rash had entirely disappeared, and Phebe lay tossing in delirium.
It was into this household that Mrs. Farrington's telegram came, like a message sent from Heaven.
The doctor tore open the long yellow envelope. His face, already of a dull grayish color, grew a shade more pale, and he shut his teeth together, as one prepared for bad tidings. He read the few words; then he drew his hand across his eyes.
"Thank God!" he said brokenly. "Teddy is safe."
The news went like wildfire through the house. There was a babel of rejoicing and exclamation; but it was to Billy that the doctor had turned.
"My dear boy," he said, laying his hand on Billy's shoulder; "our troubles are over now, if Phebe pulls through."
Billy answered his handclasp.
"We'll forget it ever happened," he said jovially.
"One doesn't forget such things," the doctor said gravely; but Billy laughed his old glad, clear laugh.
"You've done enough for me, Dr. McAlister, to balance anything else. Remember what I was when I came here, and look at me now."
The family council which followed was short.Neither Dr. McAlister nor his wife liked to leave Phebe while she was still so ill; Hubert was too young, they felt, to go to his sister; so it was Archie who finally volunteered to bring back the runaway.
"Shall I scold her very hard?" he asked, laughing, as he took up his dress-suit case, an hour later.
"Leave that to me," the doctor replied, while he tried in vain to look stern.
As Archie passed him, Billy slipped a note into his hand.
"Take that to Ted," he whispered, and Archie nodded.
It was high noon, the next day, when Archie walked into the Lodge. Theodora met him with a little, glad outcry.
"Archie! Did you come for me?"
"It looks like it. What's more, I've brought good news."
"What?"
"Billy is cleared, and I left the whole family munching humble pie."
"Archie!" And Theodora cast herself into his arms and wept hysterically.
The young man looked half abashed, half pleased, at his burden.
"Go easy, now, Ted," he remonstrated. "Don't take all the starch out of my collar, you know."
"Who did it?" she demanded.
"Phebe."
"Archie Holden! The little wretch! And she let Billy bear the blame! I—"
"She's getting her come-uppance," Archie observed, with scant pity for Phebe. "She's no end ill with chicken pox. That's the reason your father couldn't come for you."
"I don't care; she deserves it," Theodora said vengefully. "How did it come out?"
"Providence seemed to take a hand in it, Ted. 'Twas the queerest thing. The night after you left, when the family were all half wild about you, and no wonder, Babe took her hand in the game by coming down with hen pox. She caught cold somehow, the rash went in and struck on the brain, and she turned delirious. The first thing she did, she told the whole story. I suppose she had been harping on it so much that it came out, like murder."
"What did she do?"
"As nearly as we can piece it together, she and Isabel went into the barn, that morning, and started to feed Vigil. Then in fun they beganfiring things at each other, till at last Babe picked up a box of Paris green and shied it at Isabel. It struck the manger and broke all to pieces. They cleaned up what they could, and sneaked away. Whether Babe started to throw the blame on Billy at first, they don't know; but, after dinner, Babe hunted up the bottle and hid it in the manger. It isn't a pretty story, Ted; but it's true."
"Babe ought to be—"
"Abolished," Archie supplemented, with a jovial laugh. "No matter, your father will have something to say to her by and by. By Jove, Ted, I wish you'd seen him go down on his knees to Billy! There was something grand in it, to see him, with his gray hair and great brown eyes, apologizing to a boy like that. Of course, he owed him an apology and a big one; but not many men would have made it so generously before us all."
"There aren't many men like him," Theodora said proudly. "And Billy? How is he?"
"Jolly as a sandpiper. He vows that there's no one quite like you, though. You did stand by him like a good fellow, Ted, for a fact."
"You too, Archie. You helped me out, when you came. I wish you were my brother."
Archie laughed a little consciously.
"Maybe we can fix that up in time. Now go along and pack up your trumpery."
Theodora's face suddenly grew grave.
"Are they very angry at me at home, Archie?"
He laughed.
"Horribly. Still, I've an idea that, if you're meek enough, you'll be in a fair way to be forgiven."
And she was forgiven. Her welcome home was hearty and loving from them all, pathetically so from Billy, who tried in vain to cover his real emotion under a boyish indifference. The last words were still to be said, however; and it was not until Theodora sat alone in the office with her father, that night, that she felt the incident was ended and she stood among them on precisely the old ground.
"I can't blame you, my girl," he said at last, as he drew his arm yet more tightly about her waist. "You were rash and headstrong. You caused us two days of terrible anxiety, and you might have run into serious difficulties; but your purpose was a good one, even if it was too impetuous and daring for a child like you. We were all blind, Teddy, strangely blind; and I can never forgive myself for my unjust suspicions, nor be glad enough that you stood by your old friend in the face of all this evidence." There was a silence. Then he bent over and kissed her forehead. "Teddy dear, if you can only tame down this rashness of yours, and yet be the same loyal girl you are now, your womanhood will be very big and beautiful. But remember this, dear, in all this wilful, hasty end of the century, a true woman must be as gentle as she is brave, as thoughtful as she is loving."
"But I'm glad it's all over," Theodora said contentedly, the next day.
She and Billy sat on the piazza, in the golden noon of an early October day. Hope was in the hammock, with Allyn beside her and Archie on the floor at her feet, while Hubert sat on the rail facing them all. Theodora had been entertaining them with an account of her journey, and she ended her story with these words.
"It has been a terrible month," Hope said thoughtfully. "After our years of placid existence, it seems as if a cyclone had struck us, all at once. I should think you'd wish you had never set eyes on us, Billy."
"I do," he replied tranquilly, as he stared at Theodora's bright face.
"Poor old William!" she said, laughing. "It was a sorry day for you when I descended on you from the apple-tree."
"Adam and Eve never knew how well off they were, till the serpent came," Archie suggested. "I have a notion we shall have a better time than ever, now it's all over."
"You can crow over it, if you like," Hubert said remorsefully. "You and Ted were on the winning side of things. Billy, my friendship isn't good for much; but I'll be hanged if I ever expected to go back on you and make such a jay of myself."
"Never mind, Hu; it's over now," Theodora said consolingly.
"Yes, thanks to you," Hubert returned. "My share in it isn't much."
Theodora laughed.
"Thanks to Babe, you'd better say. We should still have been a divided household, if Babe hadn't been benevolent enough to have chicken pox."
"She didn't," Allyn objected suddenly. "The chicken didn't come out any. I watched to see it, and I couldn't, and papa said so, too, and that's what made her so wretchable."
"But it's over, as Teddy says," Hope observed,breaking in on the laugh that followed Allyn's contribution to medical science; "and I can't help feeling that we are going to have a lovely winter, with Archie here, and Billy to stay on till Thanksgiving. There's time to make up for all we've lost now."
"We'll make the most of it, then, for this will be my last winter here, for ever so long," Billy said, rising. "If I enter college, next fall, it will be a good while before I settle down at home again."
"And I too," Theodora added, as she rose and stood beside him.
He smiled down into her eyes for a moment, as they stood there. Then together they turned and walked away. The world about them lay golden in the sunlight and in the glow reflected back from the yellow leaves of the hickories; but not one whit less golden was the future, as it stretched away and away before their glad young eyes.
It was commencement week at Smith College. To the alumna and the student, the picture called up by those words is sufficiently definite and demands no amplification. To them, is no prettier sight possible than the broad campus dotted with buildings, and the knots of daintily-dressed girls moving slowly to and fro along the winding paths. The Meadow City always puts on her most festal array in honor of the occasion; the very heavens seem to watch for that week, and to provide for it the finest moon of the whole summer.
Baccalaureate was over, and, early Monday evening, groups were already gathering on the campus at the rear of College Hall, eager to secure comfortable places for the glee club concert. It was one of the charming pictures of the year, that concert, the cluster of girls on the steps facing the long rows of well-filled benches below. Beyond the benches, and extending far across the grass to the very steps of the oldDewey House, was a moving, shifting crowd, changing in form and color, as the brightly-dressed girls came and went, like the varying slides of a kaleidoscope. Back of the glee club, again, the open windows of the reading-room were filled with faces of old graduates who knew the place, and who chose this point of vantage either to protect their gowns and their elderly necks from the dampness outside, or to use their position facing the crowd to discover returning classmates whom they had missed in the throng.
"There's the class president," one of them said to a friend who had arrived, only that afternoon.
"Which?"
"That tall girl in pale green at the left. She's in the fourth, fifth, sixth row; and a tall, gray-haired man is with her, and a young man the other side."
"Looking this way now?"
"Yes. I don't see anything so remarkable about her; but they say she's one of the most popular girls they've ever had here."
"That is saying a good deal," her companion answered loyally, as she raised her lorgnette.
"They wanted her for ivy poet, but she couldn't be everything. She's class poet,though, and was Portia in the dramatics, Saturday night."
"What's her name?"
"McAlister. Theodora McAlister. She looks it, too; but these soulless girls all call her Teddy."
"McAlister? That is the name of the girl who made such a record in basket ball, when I was up here, last winter. They had a song in her honor."
"Probably it's the same one. My cousin says she is very all-round. All the under-class girls adore her, and they say she'll be heard from, some day. Did you say Edith Avery is back?"
Theodora, meanwhile, had settled her guests comfortably to listen to the concert. They were all there, Dr. McAlister and his wife, Hope and Hubert, Phebe and Allyn, and the Farringtons. Among so many girls, Hope, in her pretty pink gown, was quite capable of holding her own; and Billy and Hubert were in such demand that, all that day, Theodora had scarcely had a chance to exchange a word with them. It was just as well, however, for the girl's hands were full, with the active part which her offices had imposed upon her.
During the whole week, she had borne herpart admirably. When she came out on the stage for the first time, on Saturday night, she had faltered. For a moment, the sea of upturned faces had terrified her, and she could distinguish nothing but a formless blur. Then, all at once, Billy's red-gold hair and clear blue eyes had detached themselves and caught her attention, and she flashed upon him one glance, half proud, half appealing. He smiled back at her broadly and waved his programme. An instant later, she was speaking her opening lines.
She had led the baccalaureate procession; she had presided at the ivy exercises, that morning; and to-night, at the reception which followed the glee club concert, she was expected to show herself in her official capacity. The next day, she would lead her class in the commencement procession, and preside at the class supper. No wonder that she was tired, and that dark circles were beginning to come beneath her eyes. Popularity has its price, though it is a price well worth the paying. It had come to her unsought, unexpected, and she enjoyed it. Still, she was undeniably tired. She was glad for the moment to settle down on the bench, unnoticed in the crowd, with her father's arm across her shoulder and Hubert by her other side.
"Tired out, Ted?" her father asked tenderly, as she nestled against him, regardless of her finery.
"Oh, no; only glad of a chance to see my people. I have been in such a whirl, all the week, that I feel as if I had neglected you."
"We haven't suffered, and you'll rest from the whirl. You can't be graduated but once, my girl, and I want you to have the best of it," he said proudly. "Next year, you will be with us again, so don't worry about us now."
"You'd better sit up straight, Teddy," Phebe said, bending forward and speaking in an aggressively audible whisper. "You're leaning against your dress, and that thin stuff crushes awfully. Do be careful."
"Never mind," Theodora answered, with a lazy disregard of her fluffy sea of pale green chiffon. "Papa and I shall never be here again just like this, and I mean to have the good of him."
They lingered there until the concert was over and the tide was turning towards the Art Gallery. Then she rose reluctantly, and shook out her gown.
"'Give me my fan and gloves, Hu,' she said.""'Give me my fan and gloves, Hu,' she said."
"Give me my fan and my gloves, Hu," she said. "I must fly to my post. I'd much rather stay here."
As she turned away, a young man abruptly took leave of two juniors, and went hurrying after her. He was tall and alert, yet he walked with a certain stiffness, which gave an almost military erectness to his carriage.
"The Philistines be upon me, Ted! Do save me!"
She turned back to meet him.
"What is the matter, Billy? I thought you looked content while the concert was going on."
"Content! I'm distracted. I've been introduced to seven thousand girls. They all look alike, and I can't tell 'em from those I don't know."
"Smile on them all, Billy. You're equal to it."
"But I don't want 'em. I came here to see you, not Miss Swift of Chicago."
"You don't appreciate your advantages, Billy," she said, laughing, as they went together up the steps of the Art Gallery.
"Maybe not. I appreciate you, though, and I sail, in ten days. When shall you be off duty again?"
She looked down at the throng already streaming up the steps behind them.
"Come and rescue me at half-past nine, Billy, unless you find Miss Swift of Chicago a more potent attraction."
"Trust me!" And he vanished.
For more than an hour, the stream of people flowed past her. Everywhere was the swish of countless gowns, the low murmur of countless voices. Every one was there, not only the seniors and their friends, but the girls of the under classes, with here and there a wide-eyed, wondering sub-freshman. Faculty hobnobbed with sophomores, and the alumnæ pervaded all things and were in their glory. It was a pretty picture, backed as it was by the dull-hued walls and fine statuary of the gallery; and Theodora glanced about her in contented pride, to see if any of her friends were near and enjoying this crowning glory of her Alma Mater.
Ten feet away, Mrs. McAlister was discussing football with the brother of one of the seniors, a boy too young to have any real share in the evening's pleasure. Not far off, Dr. McAlister was contentedly ruffling up his hair, while he monopolized the attention of a prominent professor, who appeared altogether unconscious of the passing moments and of the crowd of alumnæ waiting for a word. Theodora smiled to herself, as she caught an occasional phrase,—
"All the bromides—Grand antiseptic qualities—Your essay in the last review."
Out on the stairs, Hope was in the midst of a gay crowd; and, quite at the other side of the building, Hubert sat on the pedestal of the Dying Gaul, with one arm thrown across the neck of the statue, while he talked to the pretty young girl perched at his side.
Punctual to the moment, Billy appeared.
"Now let's get out of this," he said abruptly.
"Aren't you having a good time?" she questioned, with a little hurt tone.
"Yes, fine. I struck some Cleveland girls; they're always pretty. But now I want a breath of fresh air and a little sensible conversation. Come along."
"Where?"
"Anywhere, as long as it's quiet."
She laughed, as she handed him her fan.
"I believe you're tired before I am, Billy."
"No; only I do want a little chance to see you. It's not as if I were going to be at home, this summer."
She glanced at him sharply. Then she bit her lip a little, as she followed him through the crowd at the door, and out upon the campus.
"This is pretty, for a fact, Ted," he said,breaking the silence. "Yale can't show anything to beat this."
"That's very generous of you, Billy," she answered; but her tone lacked its usual vivacity, and her step dragged slightly, as they moved away together among the Chinese lanterns which edged the walks in double line.
The crowd was here, too; but Billy steered her through it, past the houses and the old gymnasium, and out to the far end of the campus. At the steps of the observatory, he halted.
"It's quiet here, and we can get some good of the moon," he said. "Let's sit down here, unless you are afraid of taking cold."
"The idea! I'm not an alum.; besides, it's a warm night."
"How will you stand two commencements, Ted?" he asked, settling himself at her feet and turning to look up at her.
"Better than my gowns will," she said, showing him a long rent in her skirt.
He laughed.
"You always were hard on your clothes, Teddy. I shall never forget the sound of rending garments which heralded your first approach."
"Out of the apple-tree? I remember. I also remember the lecture Hope gave me."
"Those were good old days," he said contentedly, as he opened and shut her fan.
"These are better," she answered, looking down at him, as he sat there in the moonlight. "I can't make it seem as if you ever lived in a chair."
He looked up, shaking back his hair with a quick motion of his head.
"It's over now, thank Heaven! Still, it brought us together, after all. Teddy, I'm going to miss you. I wish I needn't go."
"But you must," she said hastily, startled at something in his tone. "It isn't everybody who has the double chance to study for his profession and to be treated by Dr. Brunald, at the same time."
"If it only finishes the cure! But two years is such a long time."
"Yes. But I'm going down with your mother to see you off, you know; and then you'll write often."
"Of course. But so much can happen in two years."
"I hope there can. Do you remember my three wishes?"
"No. Yes. Seems to me I do. What were they?"
"It was one day, under the trees in your grounds. I was in a confidential mood, I remember, and I was moved to tell them to you. They included a bicycle, a college course, and a successful career of authorship."
"I remember. You've two of them, Ted; and I believe you'll get the other."
"Wait till you come home. You may find me no nearer the end than I am now."
"I doubt it, Teddy. You've the stuff in you. Write and tell me, when you make your first hit."
"I will. I'm counting on your letters, Billy, for it's going to be very lonely without you." Her lip quivered again, and in the moonlight he saw an odd glitter in her eyes.
He took her hand in his.
"Ted," he said gently; "two years can't make any difference in such a friendship as ours. We've stuck together through thick and thin, and nothing can change us. Two years isn't a very long time to wait, and then, please God, I shall come home to you all, a strong man. After that, I shall never go away again—to leave you, dear."
The last words were almost inaudible. Then the silence and the moonlight closed in about them.
The chapel was filled to overflowing, the next day, as the procession filed up the middle aisle. Led by the white-gowned ushers, they came slowly onward, faculty and trustees, alumnæ and seniors, while above and around them, soft and full by turns, rose the sound of the organ under the masterly touch they knew so well. It was an hour when even the most heedless freshman felt the pain, the almost solemn sadness of the coming parting, yet the full meaning of the commencement day can be realized only by those who are leaving their Alma Mater for the last time.
All too soon, the morning sped away and the president rose to confer the degrees, while a hush, slight, but expectant, crept over the place.
"Quæ primum gradum accedunt."
At the well-known words, the seniors rose, with Theodora standing at their head. The girl was very pale, and her eyes looked dark and liquid, as she raised them to the president's face. From his seat in the south transept, Billy watched her while she stood there, tall and straight and noble in her young womanhood, a very daughter of to-day; and, as he looked, within him there strengthened the belief which had been slowly forming and guiding his life ever since the day,more than six years before, when Theodora had come down to him from the old apple-tree. In all those tedious, aching years, Theodora had been his best friend; and now with health and with her before him, he could afford to work, and wait, and hope.
Two years had passed away, and The Savins lay basking in the heat of an August noon. Here and there, a broad calladium leaf swayed majestically to and fro in a passing breeze, and the locusts sang shrilly in the trees overhead. Upstairs in her own room, Theodora rocked lazily, humming to herself while she darned her stockings.
"Prosaic work!" she said aloud, half whimsically. "The sure forerunner of a prosaic spinsterhood! My plans don't seem to materialize rapidly, and I foresee that I shall go on darning stockings till the end of my days. Bah! how I hate it!" She rolled up her stockings into a ball. "Two years ago, and I was saying good-by to Billy in New York, and we were making great plans for what we were to accomplish. Dear old Billy! I hope he's quite strong by this time. It's almost time for another letter from him, seems to me."
She tossed the ball to the table beside her, and, clasping her hands above her rumpled hair, fell to dreaming. Phebe interrupted her.
"A letter for you, Teddy!" she proclaimed, opening the door and casting the envelope across the room towards her sister.
"From Billy?"
"How should I know? I don't read your letters."
It was the same Phebe, older and taller, but otherwise unchanged. Now her tone was slightly toploftical.
"I didn't suppose you did," Theodora answered, while she rose to pick up the letter. "I can't say you are over-ceremonious with it, Babe."
"Don't care." And Phebe vanished as abruptly as she had come.
The letter was not from Billy. The handwriting was strange; and Theodora turned it over and over nervously, before she ventured to open it. Then of a sudden the color came into her cheeks, and her eyes flashed. Seizing the letter, she opened the door and ran down the stairs.
"Hope! Hu! Somebody!" she called, with a glad, exultant note in her voice.
She called again. Then she heard Phebe's voice from the lawn.
"I am here. What do you want?"
"Where is everybody?" Theodora asked, stepping out on the piazza.
"I'm here." Phebe's accent suggested that her feelings were hurt at the question.
"Yes; but papa and mamma?"
"Driving."
"And Hope?"
"Mooning round with Archie somewhere."
"Where's Hu?"
"Gone for a ride."
"Then you'll be the first to hear my great news."
"Needn't tell me, unless you want. I don't care to be taken Jack-at-a-pinch."
"I do want to tell you, Babe. I only thought I would wait till the others were here; but I don't believe I can wait."
"What is it?" Phebe asked, her curiosity overcoming her momentary pique as she looked at Theodora's radiant face.
"It's only that I've written a book and sent it to a publisher, and he says it's good enough to publish."
"Really? Really and truly?" Phebe's faceexpressed her incredulity. "Will he pay you a lot for it?"
"Something,—not a lot, though," Theodora answered, too much accustomed to Phebe's lack of sympathy to be hurt by her words. "But that's not the main thing, Babe. Think of the honor of it!"
"Hm!" Phebe said slowly. "It's the money I'd care for, Teddy. Ever so many people have written books before, and some of them younger than you."
Great was the rejoicing of the family, that day, when Theodora met them at the dinner-table with her news. In the clamor of question and congratulation, no word could be distinguished at first. Then Dr. McAlister's voice, clear and quiet, hushed the others.
"Teddy, dear," he said tenderly; "I couldn't love you more than I do; but this makes your old father very proud of you. I wish your own mother could have known it."
And Mrs. McAlister added softly,—
"Perhaps she does, Jack."
The clamor broke out again.
"When did you—?"
"How did you ever—?"
"Why didn't you tell us that—?"
"How long—?"
"What will Billy Farrington say?" Hope asked at length.
"He'll say, 'Didn't I always tell you so?'" Hubert answered, smiling across the table at his twin sister.
Afterwards they lingered on the piazza, talking and laughing, begging to see the manuscript, teasing Theodora about her secretiveness, and congratulating her again and again. It was an attractive group, Theodora in the midst, a tall, handsome girl in the full ripeness of her maidenly beauty, her arm linked in that of her twin brother, while pretty Hope stood facing them, with Archie at her side.
Allyn came up to them as they stood there.
"Take these, Teddy," he said, holding out his hand.
"What are they, Allyn?" she asked, loosing Hubert's arm as she bent down over the child.
"Clovers, four-leafed ones. They will bring you luck," he answered, with childish superstition.
"How many you find, Allyn! I never see any," she said, taking the handful of green leaves.
"Put them in your belt, and the first man you shake hands with, you'll marry," Phebe suggested pertly.
"Not I. I'm doomed to old-maidhood," she said, laughing.
"Give them to Hope, then," Phebe said, careless of Hope's blushes.
"Never. They are mine. You gave them to me, didn't you, Allyn?"
"Yes," the child said gravely. "You'd better keep them and put them in your belt. Hope doesn't need them as much as you do."
In the midst of the laugh that followed, Theodora went away to her room to write the momentous letter which should accept the publisher's offer. It cost her some pains to write it, to attain the proper degree of indifference, equally removed from coldness and from childish eagerness. The clock beside her told that an hour had passed over her task, and a little heap of torn papers lay on the desk before her when the maid came to call her.
"There's some one in the parlor to see you, Miss Theodora."
"Who?"
"He didn't tell me his name."
"Bother take him!" Theodora remarked to herself. Then she added aloud, "Well, I'll be right down."
It was characteristic of Theodora that she delayed to give no glance at the mirror. Just as she was, with her ruffled hair and in her simple pink morning gown, she ran down the stairway and entered the cool, dark parlor. As she crossed the threshold, the guest rose to greet her,—a guest with a tall, athletic figure, a sunburned face, keen blue eyes, and a mass of reddish golden hair.
"Billy!"
"Ted!"
"Where did you come from?"
"'The Ankworks package.'"
"But really?"
"I landed, yesterday afternoon. I was bound to give you a surprise, and I think I've made it out. Glad to see me?"
"You dear old boy! Have you any doubts about it? How well you're looking, and how—how stunning!"
"Ditto, ma'am. The years have agreed with you, I suspect."
"Yes. And you? You've told so little about yourself. You do write horrid letters, Billy."
"Your old frankness, I observe," he said mischievously.
"I know it; but when I am longing to hear if you're well and all about you, you write reams of student gossip. I forgive you, though, now I see you, for you look better than I ever supposed you could."
"Not much like the flabby chunk of flesh that used to call itself Billy Farrington?" he asked complacently.
"Not a bit, you giant; but you're the same old Billy. Is it polite to say you've grown? Walk off, and let me look at you."
Turning, he made a few quick strides up and down the room, laughing, as he did so, at the perfect satisfaction written on her face. Then he came back and took her hand once more.
"Will it pass, Teddy?" he asked, looking down at the tall girl beside him.
"Yes, in every way. You're sure you are as strong as ever?"
"Sound as a nut. And, by Jove, Ted, after two years of Dutch Gretchens, it is good to see you again."
Something in the expression of the blue eyes above her made her own eyes droop.Something in the expression of the blue eyes above her made her own eyes droop.
Something in the expression of the blue eyes above her made her own eyes droop. Thensuddenly she flushed and drew away her hand, which, all this time, had been lying in his two strong brown palms, for, as she looked down, her glance had chanced to fall upon the bunch of withered leaves which still clung in her belt.
A story of colonial life in New England during King Philip's War, and of the captivity of a little Medfield maid, to whom, on account of her brave spirit and sunny temper, the Indians gave the name of "Wanolasset"—meaning "The-little-one-who-laughs." Much historical information is cleverly interwoven with the story, which is one of absorbing interest. The author has invested her youthful characters with much of that same sweetness which characterizes "Dear Daughter Dorothy," the heroine of one of her earlier books; and their varying fortunes will be eagerly followed.—New England Magazine.
It is a story of boy and girl life in a Puritan colony, an historical romance, indeed, for young people. Miss Plympton's stories are always prime favorites, and she has never written quite so good a one as this.—Providence News.
The tale is of King Philip's War, and little Alse's capture and rescue are given with an eye to historical accuracy and with a clearer sense of justice to the captors than characterized the "Indian stories" of twenty years ago. Out of all this careful study of facts, combined with literary skill, the child of to-day ought to get a fair idea of pioneer life.—Los Angeles Express.
The story is such a one as children delight in, and is withal so simple, sweet, and wholesome that no better gift could be chosen for any child.—Lexington (Ky.) Herald.
"NAN.""NAN."
The story is one of free, outdoor life, characterized by a deal of fine descriptive writing and many bits of local color that invest the whole book with an atmosphere which is actually fragrant; the entire story is as fresh and as clear and as bright as if some of the breezes of "Lake Chicopee" had blown straight through it from cover to cover and left their odors of flowery pastures and pine woods and New Hampshire air on every page.—Bangor Commercial.
A bright story in which children and animals play an equal part.—The Outlook.
It is a charmingly entertaining book from cover to cover, and in every way entitled to a wide constituency of young readers. The story is well told and the atmosphere is healthful and uplifting, while there is a plot to keep the interest aroused, and around the central figure of the story the reader's affection and good-will is bound to cling, for the heroine is a type of young girl such as makes the world brighter and happier for her presence.—Boston Budget.
This new book by an author whose other stories have been written for younger children will win a warm place in the hearts of girl readers, and its two principal characters, Rosemary and Daisy, are likely to be very popular. The events of the story occur in two summers at the seashore and in two terms at the "Misses Bagley's Fashionable Boarding-School." The author has interwoven with the story a very charming garland of poems of flowers.