Phebe, Her Profession / A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book

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Phebe, Her Profession

A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book

BY ANNA CHAPIN RAY

1902

CHAPTER ONE

"How do you do?"

The remark was addressed to a young man who roused himself from a brown study and looked up. Then he looked down to see whence the voice proceeded. Directly in his pathway stood a wee boy, a veritable cherub in modern raiment, whose rosy lips smiled up at him blandly, quite regardless of the sugary smears that surrounded them. One hand clasped a crumpled paper bag; the other held a rusty iron hoop and a cudgel entirely out of proportion to the size of the hoop.

"And how is everybody at your house?" the babe demanded. "Are vey pretty well?"

"Very well, thank you." The young man was endeavoring to remember where, during the two weeks he had spent in Helena, he had seen this child.

"So is my people," the boy explained politely. "It is a great while since I have seen you."

Amicably enough, the stranger accepted his suggestion of a past acquaintance.

"It is a good while. Where have you been keeping yourself?"

The atom tried to drop into step at his side, tangled himself in the long tails of his little coat, gave up the attempt and broke into a jog trot.

"My mamma wouldn't let me go to walk alone for 'most a monf."

"Why?"

"'Cause I used to stay a good while, and spend all my pennies at
Jake's shop."

"Where is that?"

"Vat's where vey sells candy. I've got some now. Want some?" He rested the hoop against a convenient lamp-post and opened the bag invitingly.

"Thanks, no. You don't appear to have much to spare."

With a sigh of manifest relief, the child gathered up the crumpled top of the bag once more.

"I did have some," he explained; "but I gave half of it to a boy. Vat's what my Sunday-school teacher said I must do. And ven, by and by, I took his hoop," he added, as he resumed his march.

"Did your Sunday-school teacher tell you to do that?"

"No; but I just fought I would. He couldn't give me half of it, you see, for it wouldn't be good for anyfing if it was busted."

"No?" The stranger felt that the child's logic was better than his moral tone.

"I'm going to be good now, all ve time," the boy went on, looking up with an angelic smile. "When my mamma says 'No, Mac,' I shall say 'All right,' and when my papa smites me, I shall turn ve uvver also. Vat's ve way."

"Does he smite you?"

The smile vanished, as the child slowly nodded three times.

"Yes, awful."

"What did you do to make him smite you?"

Silence.

"What was it?"

The stranger's voice was not so stern as it might have been, and the smile came back and dimpled the child's cheeks, as he answered,—"Pepper in ve dining-room fireplace."

"What made you do that, you sinner?"

"A boy told me. You ought to have heard vem sneeze, and ven papa fumped me."

"Much?"

The child eyed him distrustfully,

"What for do you want to know?"

"Oh, because—you see, I used to get thumped, myself, sometimes."

"Yes, he fumped awful, and ven he stopped and sneezed, and I sneezed, too, and we all sneezed and had to stop."

"And then did you turn the other also?"

"No; I hadn't begun yet. I only sneezed a great deal, and papa said somefing about rooty ceilings."

In vain the stranger pondered over the last remark. He was unable to discover its application, and accordingly he passed to a more obvious question.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"What's yours?"

"Gifford Barrett."

"Mine is McAlister Holden."

"Um-m. I think I haven't met you before."

"You could if you'd wanted to, I live in ve brown house, and I've seen you lots of times. Once you 'most stepped on me."

"Did I? How did that happen?"

"You were finking of fings and got in my way."

"Was that it?"

"Vat's what my papa says, when I do it. He says I ought to look where I am going." The boy's tone was severe.

There was a pause, while Mac swung his hoop against a post. On the rebound, it struck the stranger a sharp blow just under and back of the knees. He turned and glared at the child.

"I feel just as if I should like to say confound it," Mac drawled, twisting his pink lips with relish of the forbidden word.

"So should I. Suppose we do. But how old are you?"

"'Most four."

"But little boys like you shouldn't say such words."

"My papa does; I heard him. My mamma puts soap in my mouf, when I do it," he added, with an artless frankness which appeared to be characteristic of him. Then abruptly he changed the subject. "Ve cook has gone, and mamma made such a funny pudding, last night," he announced. "It stuck and broke ve dish to get it out. Good-bye. Vis is where I live." And he clattered up the steps and vanished, hoop and all, through the front doorway, leaving the stranger to marvel at the precocity of western children and at the complexity of their vocabularies.

A week later, they met again, this time however not by accident. The young man had tried meanwhile to find out something about the child; but his sister whose guest he was, had moved to Helena only a month before, and she could furnish no clue to the mystery. His visit was proving a dull one; Mac had been vastly entertaining, so, for some days, the stranger had been watching in vain for another glimpse of the boy. At length, his efforts were rewarded. Strolling past the brown house, one morning, he became aware of a tiny figure sitting on the steps in the bright sunshine and wrapped from head to foot in a plaid horse-blanket.

"Good-morning, Mac!" he called blithely.

"How do you do?" The voice was a shade more subdued, to-day.

"Well. What are you doing?"

"Nofing much." The minor key was still evident.

"Are you sick?"

"No; 'course not."

"Playing Indian?"

Mac shook his head.

"What is the blanket for, then? It isn't cold, to-day."

The lips drooped, and the blue eyes peered out suspiciously from under their long lashes.

"I wants to wear it," he said, with crushing dignity.

"All right. Come and walk to the corner fruit stand with me."

The invitation was too tempting to be refused, and Mac scrambled to his feet. As he did so, the blanket slipped to one side. Swiftly Mac huddled it around him again; but the momentary glimpse had sufficed to show the stranger a dark blue gown and a white apron above it.

"Why, I thought you were a boy!" he gasped, too astonished at this sudden transformation to pay any heed to Mac's probable feelings in the matter.

"So I are a boy."

"But you are wearing a dress."

Mac hung his head.

"I ran away," he faltered. "Vat's why."

The stranger tried to look grave. Instead, he burst into a shout of laughter.

"I think I understand," he said, as soon as he could speak. "You have to wear these clothes, because you ran away, and the blanket is to cover them up. What made you run away?"

"Aunt Teddy."

"Who?"

"My Aunt Teddy."

"Is it—a woman?" The stranger began to wonder if it were hereditary in
Mac's family to confound the genders in such ways as this.

"Yes, she is my aunt; she's a woman, not an uncle."

"Oh. It's a curious name."

"Ve rest of her name is Farrington," Mac explained, pulling the blanket closer about his chubby legs, as he saw some people coming up the street toward him.

"And she made you run away?"

Mac nodded till his cheeks shook like a mould of currant jelly.

"What did she do?"

"Talk, and talk some more, all ve time. I want to talk some, and I can't. She eats her eggs oh natural."

"What? What does that mean?"

"'Vout any salt. Vat's what she calls it, oh natural. I like salt."

"Don't you like grapes?"

"Yes."

"Let's get some."

Wrapped like an Indian brave, Mac started off down the street, his yellow and blue toga trailing behind him and getting under his feet at every step. His dignity, nevertheless, was perfect and able to triumph over even such untoward circumstances as these, and he accepted the stranger's conversational attempts with a lofty courtesy which suggested a reversal of their relative ages. Just as the corner was reached, however, and the fruit stand was but a biscuit-toss away, he suddenly collapsed.

"Vere vey are!" he exclaimed.

"Who?"

"My mamma, and Aunt Teddy." And, turning, he scurried away as fast as his blanket would let him.

As he passed them, the young man gave a glance at the two women, swift, yet long enough to take in every detail of their appearance and stamp it upon his memory. The shorter one with the golden hair was evidently Mac's mother, not only because she was the older, but became the child's mischievous face was like a comic mask made in the semblance of her own gentle features. Her companion was more striking. Taller and more richly dressed, she carried the impression of distinctiveness, of achievement, as if she were a person who had proved her right to exist. Gifford Barrett's eyes lingered on her longer, at a loss to account for a certain familiarity in her appearance. Where had he seen her before? Both face and figure seemed known to him, other than in the relation of Mac's Aunt Teddy.

"I saw the small boy again, to-day," he told his sister, that night.

"Who? Your little Mac?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I decline to assume any responsibility for him, Kate. He passes my comprehension entirely. He looks like a cherub on a Della Robbia frieze and converses like the king of the brownies. I expect to hear him quote Arnold at any instant."

His sister laughed.

"I can't imagine who he can be," she said. "I wish you weren't going East so soon, Giff, and we would go on a tour of investigation. Such a child isn't likely to remain hid under a bushel; and, if I find him, I will let you know all about him. What is it, Jack?" she added, as her husband looked up from his paper with an exclamation of surprise.

"I've have been entertaining angels unawares,—in the next block, that is," he answered. "Listen to this: 'Mrs. Theodora McAlister Farrington, the novelist, who has been spending the winter with her sister, Mrs. Holden of Murray Street, left for her home in New England, to-night.'"

"Ah—h!" There was a sigh of content from across the table. "Now I have my bearings. My imp is Mac Holden and Mrs. Farrington is Aunt Teddy, of course. I met her in New York, last winter, at a dinner or two; but she evidently had forgotten me. Such is fame!"

"Which?" his sister inquired, as she rose to leave the table.

CHAPTER TWO

The Savins, glistening in its snowy blanket, wore an air of expectancy, the house on the corner below was being swept and garnished, while the cold twilight air was burdened with savory odors suggestive of feastings to come. Mrs. McAlister came back from a final survey of the corner house, made her eleventh tour of the parlor, dining-room and kitchen at The Savins, and then took her stand at the front window where she tapped restlessly on the glass and swayed the curtain to and fro impatiently. She was not a nervous woman; but to-night her mood demanded constant action. Moreover, it was only an hour and a quarter before the train was due. If she were not watchful, the carriage might come without her knowing it, and the occupants miss half their welcome home.

Framed in the soft, white draperies, her face made an attractive picture for the passer-by. Mrs. McAlister's girlhood had passed; a certain girlishness, however, would never pass, and her clear blue eyes had all the life and fire they had shown when, as Bess Holden she had been the leader in most of the pranks of her class at Vassar. The brown hair was still unmarked by grey threads and the complexion was still fresh and rosy, while in expression the face in the window below was far younger than the one peering out from the upper room, just above it.

Allyn McAlister was a graft on the family stock, in temperament, at least. Born into a genial, jovial, healthy family, his was the only moody nature there. His brother and sisters might be mischievous or even fractious; but they were never prone to have black half-hours. It was reserved for the youngest one of them all, Allyn McAlister, aged fifteen, to spell his moods with a capital M. His father was wont to say that Allyn was a mixture of two people, of two nameless, far-off ancestors. For days at a time, he was a merry, happy-go-lucky boy. Then, for some slight cause or for no cause at all, he retired within himself for a space when he remained dumb and glowered at the rest of the world morosely. Then he roused himself and emerged from his self-absorption into a frank crossness which wore away but slowly. A motherless childhood when he was alternately teased and spoiled by his older sisters and brother had helped on the trouble, and not even the wisdom of his father and the devotion of his stepmother could cure the complaint. At his best, Allyn was the brightest and most winning of his family; at his worst, it was advisable to let him severely alone. In the whole wide world, only two persons could manage him in his refractory moods. One was his father; the other was his sister Theodora, and Theodora had been in Helena, all winter long. However, she was coming home that night, and Allyn's nose grew quite white at the tip, as he pressed it against the windowpane, in a futile effort to see still farther up the street.

Theodora, meanwhile, sat watching the familiar landscape sweeping backward past the windows of the express train. She knew it all by heart, the low hillocks crowned with clusters of shaggy oaks still thick with unshed leaves, the strips of salt marsh with the haycocks like gigantic beehives, the peeps of blue sea, sail-dotted or crossed by a thin line of smoke, and the neat little towns so characteristic of southern New England. Impulsively she turned to her husband.

"Oh, don't you pity Hope, Billy?"

"What for?"

"To live out there. I suppose Archie's business makes it a necessity; but
I do wish he would come back and settle down near us."

"He would be like a bull in a china shop, Teddy. Fancy Archie Holden, after having all the Rocky Mountains for his workshop, coming back and settling down into one of these bandboxy little towns! He is better off, out there."

"Perhaps. But isn't it good to get back again?"

He looked at her in some perplexity.

"I thought you were having such a good time, Ted."

"I was, a beautiful one; but I am so glad to see blue, deep water again. I was perfectly happy, while I was there; but now I feel as if I couldn't wait to be in our own home again, Billy, and gossip with you after dinner in the library. People are so in the way. It will be like a second honeymoon, with nobody to interrupt us."

He laughed at her enthusiasm.

"Old married people like us! But you will mourn for Mac, Ted; you know you will."

Forgetting the familiar landscape, she turned to face him with a laugh which chased all the dreaminess from her eyes.

"Billy Farrington! But did you ever know such a mockery of fate?"

"As Mac?"

"Yes, as Hope's having such a child?"

"It is a little incongruous."

"It is preposterous. Hope was always the meek angel of the household, and Archie is not especially obstreperous. But Mac—" Theodora's pause was expressive.

Billy laughed.

"He combines the face of an angel and the wisdom of a serpent," he remarked. "I don't know whether his morals or his vocabulary are more startling. Hope has her hands full; but she will find a way to manage him, even if she can't learn from her own childhood, as you could."

"Thank you, dear. Your compliments are always charming. Perhaps I wasn't an angel-child; but you generally aided and abetted me in my misdeeds. I do hope, though, that Mac will grow in grace before they come East, next summer."

Her husband glanced up, started slightly, then leaned back in his chair while a sudden look of amusement came into his blue eyes. The next moment, Theodora sprang up with a glad exclamation.

"Hu!"

The train had stopped, and a young man had come into the car, given a quick look at the passengers and then marched straight to Mrs. Farrington's chair. Resting his hands on her shoulders, he bent down and laid his cheek against hers, and Theodora, regardless of the people about her, turned and cast herself into his arms. Tall and lithe and singularly alike in face, it scarcely needed a second glance to show that they were not only brother and sister, but twins as well. Moreover, in spite of Hubert's successful business life and Theodora's devotion to her husband, the twins were as necessary to each other as the blades of a pair of scissors.

"How well you are looking! Have you missed me? Aren't you glad to see us back? How are they all at home?" she demanded breathlessly.

Her brother laughed, as he shook hands with Billy.

"Steady, Ted! One at a time. You haven't lost your old trick of asking questions. We are all well, and I left the mother alternately peering out of the front window of our house and punching up the pillows on the couch in your library."

"And papa?"

"Splendid, and covered with glory for his last operation on the Gaylord child. It is the talk of the town."

Theodora's eyes flashed proudly.

"Isn't he wonderful? If he had never had a patient but Billy, he might have been content. I wish you could be half the man he is, Hu."

"I do my endeavors, Ted."

"Yes, and you are a boy to be proud of, even if you aren't a doctor," she answered. "You look as if the last five months had agreed with you."

"They have, for I didn't have anybody around to torment me, and I grew fat and sleek from day to day. How is Hope?"

"As well as is compatible with being Mac's mother."

"What is the matter with him? You didn't write much."

"No; for I knew you wouldn't believe the half of my tales. Hu, the boy is an imp."

"He combines the least lovely traits of Teddy and Babe," Mr. Farrington remarked gravely.

"I was never half so original and daring as he is," Theodora said regretfully. "My iniquities were trite; his are fresh from the recesses of his own brain. He is a cunning child, Hu, and a pretty one; but his ways are past finding out, and—"

"And, as I said, he favors his Aunt Teddy," her husband interposed.

Theodora decided to change the subject.

"How is Allyn?" she asked.

Hubert's face sobered.

"He is well."

"Is anything the matter with the boy?" Theodora demanded, for Allyn had always been her own especial charge, and her marriage had made no break in their relations. Allyn's home was as much at the corner house as at The Savins.

"No; only the world goes hard with him. He has needed you, Teddy. The rest of us rub him the wrong way. He has a queer streak in him. I wish I could get hold of him; but I can't."

"It is the cross-grained age," Theodora said thoughtfully. "He will come out all right."

"Perhaps; but meanwhile he is having a bad time of it, for he can't get on with any of the boys. He lords it over them, and then resents it and sulks, if they rebel. Where does he get it, Ted? We weren't like that."

"It is too bad," she said slowly; "but I'll see what I can do with him."

"He has needed you, Teddy; that is a fact. Even the mother can't get on with him as you do. You're going to stay at home now for a while; aren't you?"

"Yes; we are going to have a perfect honeymoon of quiet. We have wandered enough, and we don't mean to budge again for the next ten years. I am going to write, all day long; and, when twilight falls, Billy and I will draw our elbow chairs to the fire, and sit and gossip and nod over the andirons till bedtime. We haven't had an hour to ourselves for five months, and now we must make up for lost time."

Hubert laughed.

"You are as bad as ever. When do I come in?"

"On Sundays. I expect a McAlister dinner party, every Sunday night. Otherwise, four times a day. We have three elbow chairs, you know, and the hearth is a broad one."

"You haven't asked after Phebe," Hubert said, after a pause.

"What was the use? Billy had a letter from his mother, the day we left
Helena, and I knew you would have had nothing later."

"But we have."

"What?"

"She sailed for home, to-day, on the Kaiserina."

"Hubert!"

"Theodora?"

"What do you mean?"

"Just that and no more."

"How did you hear?"

"A cable, to-day."

"But Mrs. Farrington said she was going to Italy."

"Perhaps she is."

"Not if she is coming home."

"She isn't."

Theodora looked mystified, as much at the ambiguity of the pronouns as at the fact itself.

"Babe is coming home alone," Hubert added.

"Is she ill?"

"Quite well, she says."

"Then what in the world is she coming for?" Theodora's tone expressed both indignation and incredulity.

"It passes my comprehension. What do you think, Billy?"

Mr. Farrington took off his hat and pushed back his red-gold hair. It was a trick he had, when he was worried or annoyed.

"I can't imagine," he said anxiously. "Mother has enjoyed Babe and she has written often of Babe's being happy over there. It seemed a pleasant thing for them both; and I am sorry to have the arrangement broken up. What has Babe written to you?"

"Constant ecstasies. She has been perfectly happy, and has chanted the praise of your mother for paragraphs at a time. I think there can't have been any trouble, or Babe would have told us. She isn't the one to disguise her feelings and spoil a story for relationship's sake."

Theodora sighed. Then she laughed.

"It is only another one of Babe's freaks," she said, with a blitheness which was meant for her husband's ear. "We must bide our time till she comes to explain herself. Did you ever know her to do what you expected of her?"

It was nearly dark when the train rolled in at the familiar station. The Farrington carriage was waiting, and beside it waited a grey-haired man in plain green livery. The travelers hailed him as Patrick, and he greeted them with a delight that was out of all keeping with the severe decorum of his manner of a moment before. Then, merry as a trio of children, they drove up the snowy streets, Theodora and Billy in wild rapture at the thought of being at home once more, Hubert more quiet, but none the less happy in the prospect of having his sister within reach again.

They were to dine at The Savins, that night, and they drove directly there. The low red house rested unchanged on its hilltop where the twilight was casting greyish shadows across the snow. Lights gleamed in all the windows; but no welcoming face was silhouetted against them. Upstairs, Allyn was restlessly pacing his room at the back of the house; below, a sudden fragrance of burning meats had sent Mrs. McAlister flying to the kitchen, and for an instant the travelers stood alone in the broad front hall, with no one to welcome them.

It was only for an instant, however. Dr. McAlister rushed out from his office, and Mrs. McAlister came running to meet them, to exclaim over them and lead them forward to the blazing fire. Then there was a thud and a bump, and Theodora was gripped tight in two strong boyish arms and felt a clumsy boyish kiss on her cheek, while she heard, not noisily, but quite low,—

"Oh, Teddy, you've come at last!"

CHAPTER THREE

Phebe McAlister sat on the floor beside an open trunk. Around her was scattered a pile of feminine mysteries, twice as bulky as the trunk from which they had come, and the bed was littered with gowns as varied in hue as in material. Pink chiffon met green broadcloth, and white silk and blue gingham nestled side by side with a friendly disregard of the fact that their paths in life would not often bring them together. The whole room was in a wild state of disarray. The only orderly object in it was Phebe herself.

A girl of the early twenties, perfect in health and in trim neatness, never lacks a certain attractiveness; but Phebe went beyond that. At a first glance, her features might be condemned as irregular, her eyes as too piercing, her lips and chin as too firm. The next moment, all that was forgotten. Phebe was rarely silent for more than one moment at a time. As soon as she spoke, her face lighted and became whimsical, piquant, merry, or fiery as suited her mood; and Phebe's friends were never agreed as to which of her moods was most becoming. Pretty she was not, beautiful she was not; but she was undeniably interesting, and at times brilliantly handsome.

She looked up, as Theodora came into the room.

"How do? Sit down," she said briefly.

"I came over to see if I couldn't help you with your unpacking," Theodora said, as she paused beside the trunk.

"Thank you, no. I can do it."

"But it is such a trial. I love to pack; but unpacking is always rather an anti-climax."

"I don't mind it," Phebe said calmly, while she sorted stockings industriously.

"Let me do that," Theodora urged.

"No; it might be a trial to you, and I really don't mind. Sit down and look at my photographs. They are in the third box from the top of the pile in the corner."

"Methodical as ever, Phebe?"

"I have to be. It takes too much time to sort out things. Your bureau drawers would give me a fit." Phebe rolled up her stockings with an emphatic jerk.

"It is no credit to you to be orderly, Babe; you were born so. I wasn't," Theodora said tranquilly, as she took up the photographs. "Billy's bump of order is large enough for both of us, though."

"I should think you would be terribly trying to him," Phebe remarked frankly.

"Poor old William! Perhaps I am; but he is considerate enough not to mention it."

Phebe rose to bestow an armful of clothing in a bureau drawer.

"He looks so well." she said. "I do wish his mother could see him. She worries about him even now, and gets anxious if the letters are delayed. If she could see him, she would leave that off. He is ever so much stronger than when we went away."

"Married life agrees with him. What is this, Babe? It isn't marked."

"It's the hotel at the foot of the Rigi, not a good picture, but I hadn't time to get any other."

"Was that where you left Mrs. Farrington?"

"Yes."

"What made you do it, Babe?"

"The Ellertons were there on their way home, and I could travel with them. I didn't care to cross half the continent alone, even if I am an American girl."

"No; I don't mean that. What made you come home now?"

"A declaration of independence," Phebe responded enigmatically.

Theodora looked anxious.

"But I hope you didn't hurt Mrs. Farrington's feelings, leaving her so suddenly after all she had done for you."

"I am not a child, Teddy, and I think you might trust me," Phebe answered, with an access of dignity.

"I do, dear; only I couldn't understand your coming home so abruptly, and
I was afraid there might have been some trouble between you and Mrs.
Farrington."

Phebe shook her head.

"No; Mrs. Farrington is an angel. You can't imagine how good to me she has been. She has always managed to make me feel that it was only for her own pleasure that she asked me to go with her. If I had been her own daughter, she couldn't have been more kind to me, and I know she was sorry to have me come away."

"Then why didn't you stay? Were you homesick, Babe?"

"Not for an hour; I'm not that kind. I missed you all; but I was very happy, and I knew you didn't need me here."

"What made you come home, then?"

Phebe pushed the gowns aside and sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Has it ever occurred to you, Teddy," she asked slowly; "that two years is a great while?"

"Yes; but what then? You were happy."

"I know; but it was a child's happiness, and I am a woman, twenty-two years old. It was lovely to wander over Europe, to wear pretty gowns and to meet charming people, and let Mrs. Farrington pay all the bills."

"But if she loved to do it, Babe? She did."

"Yes, she was fond of me," Phebe admitted; "and she wanted me to stay for one more year."

"I wish you had."

Phebe shook her head.

"I couldn't. At first, I thought it would be delightful, and all our plans were made. Then, one night, I couldn't sleep at all, for thinking about it. By morning, my mind was made up; and then,—"

"And then?" Theodora asked.

Phebe rose and bent over the trunk once more.

"And then I came home," she said quietly.

There was a long pause. Theodora was aimlessly turning over the photographs in her lap, while Phebe methodically packed away the contents of her trunk. The room was quite orderly again before either of the sisters spoke. Then Theodora asked,—

"What are you going to do now, Babe?"

"Study."

"Study what?"

"Medicine."

"Phebe McAlister!"

A sudden flash of merriment came into the shrewd eyes.

"That is my name," she observed. "Do you remember how you worked at
Huntington's to get money for college? It is my turn now."

"I remember how you scolded me for it," Theodora responded tartly. "What has turned you to this whim, Babe?"

"It is no whim. It is a good profession, and other women no smarter than
I, have succeeded in it."

"You are smart enough, Babe; it's not that. But why do you want to do anything of the kind?"

"What should I do? I sha'n't marry. Billy is the only man I ever liked. You took him, and you appear to be in rude health, so there is no chance for me. I must do something, Teddy, something definite. I can't potter round the house, all my days. The mother is housekeeper; I must have something more absorbing than dusting and salads and amateur photography to fill up my time."

Theodora laughed at the outburst. Then, as she sat looking up at her tall young sister, a sudden gentleness crossed her face. In their childhood, she and Phebe had always clashed. To-day, for the first time, she felt a full comprehension of the girl's point of view.

"Things are out of joint, Teddy," Phebe was saying. "It is all right for a boy to be restless and eager to find his place; but we girls must trot up and down one narrow path, all our days. Sometimes I don't mind it; but there come times when I want to knock down the fences and break away into a new track of my own, a track that goes somewhere, not a promenade. I want to have a goal and keep moving toward it, not swing this way and that like a pendulum. Europe was lovely, and Mrs. Farrington; but—I'm queer, Ted. There is no getting around the fact." Phebe brushed away a tear that hung heavy on her brown lashes.

Theodora held out her hand to her invitingly; but Phebe shook her head.

"No; I don't want to be cuddled, Ted; I'm not a baby. I want to be understood; that is all. You never can understand, though. You have Billy and your writing, more than your fair share, and you grew up into them both. You were foreordained. Other people are. I wish I were; but I'm not, and yet I want to work, to do something definite." She paused with a little laugh. "I said something about it once to some nice English girls I met at Lucerne. They seemed very all-round and energetic, and I thought they would understand. They just put their dear, rosy heads on one side and said, 'Oh, dear me, how very unusual!' Then I gave it up and kept still till I told Mrs. Farrington. She understood."

"Did she?"

"She always understands things. We talked it all over, and she agreed that it was best for me to come home."

"But how did you happen to choose medicine?"

"What else was there? Besides, I ought to inherit it, and papa ought to have some child follow him. Hubert didn't, and I must."

"What about Allyn?"

"He is too young yet to tell whether he will amount to anything or not. I don't believe he is the right kind, either. I am."

"How do you mean?" In spite of herself, Theodora laughed at the assurance in Phebe's tone.

"Oh, I have studied myself a good deal," she said with calm complacency. "I am not nervous, nor very sympathetic, and I think I could operate on people very nicely."

"Phebe!" This time, there was no concealment in Theodora's laugh.

"You needn't make fun of me," she said indignantly. "That helps along; papa says it does. I had a long talk with him, last night, after you and Billy went home."

"What did he say?"

"A good many things that there is no use in repeating," Phebe responded loftily.

"Wasn't he surprised?"

"Yes, as much as he ever is, at anything I do." For the moment, Phebe's sense of humor asserted itself. Then she grew grave again. "It is settled that I am to work with him till summer. Then, next fall, if I really want to go on with it, I am to go to Philadelphia to study there. Hope will be shocked, and Hu will make all manner of fun of me, I know. I do hope you and Billy will stand by me, Ted, and believe it is not a schoolgirl whim, but a real wish to find some work and do it."

Theodora rose and stood beside her sister.

"I do believe it, dear," she said. "I know how I feel about my own work and how I want to succeed in it, for all your sakes. Only, Phebe, the time may come when you will be ready to put your profession, not in the first place, but in the second."

But Phebe shook her head.

"No; I am not that kind, Ted. I'm queer, they all say, and I think my work will always come first. Mrs. Farrington tried to make a society woman of me; but it was no use."

"William Farrington!" Theodora said, that night.

"Yes, madame."

"Once upon a time, there was a girl who came down out of a tree, and took a boy to bring up. That's us, Billy, and I always have supposed that my hands were full with training you. Now I have discovered that they are not."

"Is it a new story?" her husband asked, dropping his book and looking at her expectantly.

"Alas, no! No such luck. I came home with a dozen plans for work simmering in my brain; but I must put them back and let them parboil themselves for a while longer. My family are demanding my whole attention."

"What now?"

"Sisterly confidences. It is funny, Billy; but it is rather distracting to my work. Allyn took me to walk, this morning, and told me the tragic tale of his first love affair. It was Lois Hawes, and it ended most unromantically. He helped her to get ready for the prize speaking, last month, and then she took the prize away from him and neglected to mention that he had coached her. Now he rages at the whole race of girls and says he won't finish his term of dancing school."

"That is unwise of him," Mr. Farrington commented, "Did you bring him to a better way of thinking?"

"I wrestled with him; but he was still proclaiming that 'girls aren't any good,' so I beat a retreat."

"He needs a girl to bring him up, as you brought me," Billy remarked.

"There aren't many who would dare attack Allyn," Theodora said, laughing. "I had you at my mercy; you couldn't escape. Allyn can fight and run away; that makes him doubly dangerous. He does fight, too. He is a dear boy, Billy; but I honestly think that, if he goes on, he won't have a friend left in town. He is a veritable porcupine, and his quills are always rising."

"He has the worst of it. But I do wish you needn't worry about him, Ted"

"I don't really worry; only I wish more people knew the other side of the boy. But now prepare yourself for a shock. It is Babe, this time. She is going to study medicine."

"What!"

"Yes. She came home for that."

"Phebe a doctor! She is about as well fitted for it as for a—plumber."

"So I think; but to hear her talk about it, one would think her whole aim in life was wholesale surgery. She appears to revel in grim details of arteries and ligaments. The fact is, she is restless and wants some occupation, and this seems to appeal to her."

"I believe I know how she feels. I went through something the same experience, my last year in college," Billy said thoughtfully. "It is a species of mental growing pains; one wants to do something, without knowing just what. I don't believe Babe will ever write M.D. after her name, and I devoutly hope she won't kill too many people in trying for it; but the study will be good for her. She has played long enough, and a little steady grind will help her to work off some of her extra energy. Let her go on."

Theodora rose and stood leaning on the back of his chair.

"You are such a comfort, Billy," she said gratefully. "I was afraid you would be horrified at the idea, and feel that Phebe didn't appreciate all your mother has done for her. It was a great deal for her to take a young girl like Babe for two years, and give her the best of Europe. Babe knows it, and she almost reveres your mother." She was silent for a moment. Then she said impetuously, "Billy, are my family too near?"

"Of course not. Why?"

"Are they too much in evidence? We belong to each other, you and I; I want you all to myself, and it seems as if my people were always coming in to interrupt us,—not they themselves, but worries about them. I love them dearly, and I want them; but I could be content on a desert island alone with you. I never have half enough of you, and sha'n't, as long as I have to bring up Allyn and Phebe and Hubert. Your family are well-behaved; they stay in the background."

"They may crop up unexpectedly," Mr. Farrington answered, in a burst of prophecy of whose truth he was unconscious. "But what about the book, Teddy? It is time you were at work."

Theodora clasped her hands at the back of her head and began to pace the floor. Her step was as free and lithe as that of an active boy; and her pale gown brightened the color in her cheeks and in the glossy coils of her hair. Her husband looked up at her proudly. They had been comrades before they had been lovers; and, from the day of their first meeting to the present hour, his admiration and his loyalty had been boundless and unswerving. Suddenly she paused before him.

"William," she said; "I am lazy, utterly lazy. It is so good to be at home again and keeping house all by our two selves that I want to enjoy myself for a space. For a month, a whole month longer, I am going to play and have the good of life. Then I shall shut myself up and say farewell to the world while I create a masterpiece that will rend your heart and your tear glands. Only," she dropped down on a footstool beside him; "only I do hope that Allyn and Babe will return to their wonted habits, and that this new cook will learn that one doesn't usually mash macaroni before bringing it to the table. If it were not for the souls and the digestions of our families, Billy, we could all produce great works."

CHAPTER FOUR

Theodora Farrington's saving grace lay in her sense of humor. It had saved her from many dangers, from none more insidious than that lurking in five years' experience as a successful author. It had rescued her from the slough of despond when unappreciative publishers rejected her most ambitious attempts; it had come to her aid also when a southern admirer whose intentions were better than his rhetoric, sent her a manuscript ode constructed in her honor. She had won success in her profession; but she had won it at the expense of some hard knocks. But, however much the world might be awry, two people had never lost faith in her talent. To her father and her husband, to their encouragement and their belief in her future, Theodora owed her best inspiration.

For the past year, she had forsaken her inky way and given herself up to a well-earned rest, wandering from Mexico to Alaska and back again to Helena. Now that she was settled in her home once more, the spirit of work was lacking. Theodora was domestic, and she found it good to take up her household cares again, so for a month after her return she turned a deaf ear to her publisher while she and her husband revelled in their coming back to humdrum ways much as a pair of children play at housekeeping. Then Theodora's conscience asserted itself, with the discouraging result that she became undeniably cross and, over his paper of an evening, Billy watched her in respectful silence. Past experience had taught him what this portended.

Two days later, Theodora came to luncheon with unruffled brow. Across the table, her husband looked at her inquiringly.

"Under way, Teddy?"

"Yes, at last."

"I'm glad. I do hope nothing will interrupt you."

"Something will; it always does. Fortunately it is Lent and not much is stirring. Anyway, I mean to have my mornings free, whatever comes."

"I'll mount guard on the threshold, if you want," he responded.

Only a week afterward, Theodora was in her writing-room, hard at work. Her desk, surmounted by a shabby photograph of her husband in his boyhood, was orderly and deserted; but the broad couch across the western window was strewn with sheets of manuscript which overflowed to the floor, while in the midst of them Theodora sat enthroned, a book on her knee and her ink insecurely poised on one of the cushions beside her. Across the lawn she could see The Savins among the tall, bare trees, and she paused now and then to watch the yellow sunshine as it sifted down through the branches. All at once she stopped, with a frown.

"But I must see her," Allyn was saying sharply.

"She is busy."

"Never mind; she will see me."

There was a word or two more; then a silence, and Theodora returned to her interrupted sentence. The next minute, she started abruptly, as she heard a boyish fist descend on the panels of her door.

"Go away! Oh, my ink!" she exclaimed. "Please let me alone. It's all tipped over."

"I'm sorry, Ted; but I must come." And Allyn stalked into the room.

"Oh, what do you want?" she asked despairingly, as she took up the dripping pillow by the corners and looked about for a suitable place to deposit it.

"Throw it out of the window," he suggested briefly. "I didn't mean to,
Teddy; but there's a row, and I must tell you."

She shut down the window sharply. Then she turned to look at him, and of a sudden the annoyance vanished from her face and in its place there came a new expression gentler and of a great protecting love. Years before, in his invalid boyhood, her husband had known that look. Of late, no one but Allyn had called it forth. To-day there was need for it, for Allyn was in evident want of sympathy. His cheeks were flushed; but there was a white line around his lips, and his hands, like his voice, were unsteady. He was short and slight, with a mass of smooth brown hair and brown eyes that for the moment had lost all their merriment and were sternly sombre under their straight brows. His chin was firm; but his lips were not so full of decision.

Swiftly Mrs. Farrington gathered up her papers and shut them into her Desk. Then she turned abruptly, laid her hands on the boy's shoulders and looked straight down into his eyes.

"What is it, Allyn?" she asked gravely.

For an instant his lips quivered. Then he said briefly,—

"I'm expelled, Teddy."

"Allyn!"

"Yes, I know."

"Not really?"

She read confirmation in his eyes.

"What for?" she demanded.

"For insulting Mr. Mitchell."

"What did you say?"

"I told him what I thought of him, and he didn't like it."

Theodora frowned at the tone of boyish bravado.

"Allyn," she said steadily; "tell me, what you have done."

"I told him he was a great deacon," the boy said hotly; "and I'm glad I did it, too. He ought to know what we think of him. He goes to church every Sunday, with a long face on him; and, all the rest of the week, he bullies the fellows."

"At least, you think he does," Theodora amended.

"He does," Allyn returned fiercely. "He is a coward, too, and never goes for our crowd; but takes boys like Jamie Lyman, stupid, shabby little milksops that don't dare stand up to him. It isn't their fault that they are dunces, and he ought to know it. I told him so."

Theodora looked perplexed.

"Sit down, Allyn," she said. "I want to talk this over quietly. Does papa know?"

"No; it's only just now, and I came straight to you. I thought perhaps you would help me tell him. I'm sorry, Ted, honestly sorry; but there wasn't anything else to do."

Up to this moment, Theodora had been trying to hold on to the threads of her interrupted chapter. Now she dropped them entirely, as she rested her arm on Allyn's shoulder.

"I am glad to have you tell me things," she said. "Now make a clean breast of it, Allyn."

And Allyn did make a clean breast of it, sparing nothing of the detail of weeks of petty tyranny. It was a story which fortunately is rare in these latter days, a story of a nervous, toadying teacher who vented his bad temper in those directions where there was least chance of its rousing a just resentment.

"I couldn't help it, Ted," he said at length. "I've no sort of use for Jamie Lyman; he lisps and he has warts, and he hasn't the pluck of a white rat. He looks like one, anyhow, with his tow head and his little pinky eyes. I told Mr. Mitchell it was a shame. He talked a good deal, and I suppose I did. We both were pretty mad, and then he told me I must take it back, or else get out. I couldn't take it back, so I walked off."

In the boy's excitement, the words came tumbling over each other and his brown eyes lighted. Then they grew dull again, as his sister spoke.

"I am sorry about it, Allyn," she said slowly; "sorry for you, because you must go back and apologize."

"I won't."

"I think you'll have to. There isn't any other way."

"But it was all true."

"Perhaps so. I am not sure. I know you meant to stand up for the right side; still, you must apologize to Mr. Mitchell, all the same."

The boy stared at her reproachfully.

"But I thought you would understand, Ted."

"I do, dear. If I didn't understand quite so well, I shouldn't be so sure what you ought to do. When I was your age, I was always getting into just such scrapes as this, simply because I used to burn up all my powder without taking aim. All the good it did, was to show up the weak spots of my position. Go slow, Allyn, and don't be so ready to fight. It never does any good."

"But I wasn't going to sit still and let him bully that little baby,"
Allyn argued.

"No; but you needn't have tried to bully him in your turn," his sister answered promptly, though in her heart of hearts she was in perfect sympathy with her young brother. She gloried in his fearlessness, even while she told herself that he must submit to discipline. "It wasn't your place to tell Mr. Mitchell what he ought to do. He is an older man, and he may have reasons that you don't know. He is not accountable to you, Allyn, and his judgment may be better than yours. Moreover, you owe him obedience, and the McAlisters always pay their debts."

"Have I got to eat humble pie and go back, Teddy?"

"You've got to eat humble pie," she said, as a laughing note crept into her voice when she thought of Jamie Lyman, insignificant and warty cause of such a storm. "About your going back, that is for papa to say, dear. I think you ought to do it."

"I hate that school!" he muttered restively.

"Why?"

"Don't like the fellows."

"What is the matter with them?"

"Foolish."

"Try the girls, then."

"They're worse."

"Hm." Theodora mused aloud. "Given ten boys: if nine of them all like each other, and the tenth doesn't like any of them, where does the trouble lie? Allyn you are getting cranky."

"Maybe so; but I can't help it."

"Yes, you can, too. Do you know, you need a chum."

A sudden flash of fun came into Allyn's eyes.

"What's the matter with you, Ted?"

"Me? I'm too old. Besides, I am producing literature."

"And I interrupted," he said penitently, for he took much satisfaction in his sister's work.

"No; at least, not much. I want you to tell me things, Allyn. We have always been chums, and I should be a good deal jealous of any one else."

"But I don't want any one else. What's the use?"

"Yes, you want somebody to antic with, while I am busy, just as I have Billy, somebody of your own age, only you must always like me best. Now come over to see if papa is in his office and talk things over with him. He can advise you a good deal better than I can, Allyn; but, this time, I think I know about what he will say." And she did.

It took more than an hour for Dr. McAlister to explain to his young son the difference between independence and anarchy. There was a fearlessness in the boy's point of view that roused his father's admiration, and more than once he was forced to turn away to hide his amusement at Allyn's disclaimers of anything like personal affection for Jamie.

"Jamie!" he said, in one final outburst. "Jamie! Fifteen years old, and calls himself Jamie! If he'd only brace up and be Jim, there'd be some sort of hope for him."

The result of the discussion was the doctor's sending Allyn back to apologize and take his old place in the school once more, while he sat himself down to write a plain note to the master. Theodora, meanwhile, went in search of Mrs. McAlister. She found her in her own room, humming contentedly to herself over the family mending. Forgetful of her years and her inches, Theodora cast herself down on the floor at her stepmother's feet.

"Whatever made you do it?" she asked without preface.

"Do what?"

"Marry papa."

"Because—well, because he asked me."

"You never would have done it, if you had seen us first," Theodora responded half whimsically, half discontentedly. "Hope and Hubert are all right; but the rest of us are enough to turn your hair white. I was bad enough; and now Phebe is forsaking the world and taking to skeletons, and Allyn is at war with the whole human race, including Mr. Mitchell. Well, Phebe, what now?"

"I heard my name and thought I'd come and take a hand in the discussion," Phebe announced, as she strolled into the room. "Have I done anything you don't like? If I have, just mention it."

"Nothing more than usual," Theodora said, laughing. "Goodness me, Babe!
What's that?"

"What's what?" Phebe cast an apprehensive glance behind her.

"In your hand?"

"That? Oh, that's my tibia. I was studying where it articulates into the fibula. It's ever so nice. Just see the cunning little grooves."

"Booh!" Theodora laughed, even in her disgust. "I am not weak-minded,
Babe, but those things do not appeal to me."

"Every one to his taste," Phebe said loftily. "I like bones better than
Browning, myself. Isabel St. John thinks she will be a nurse."

"Then you can hunt in pairs," Theodora commented irreverently. "I pity the patient. Do you really like this sort of thing, Babe?"

Phebe rested her cheek meditatively against the upper end of her tibia.

"Yes, of course; or else I shouldn't be doing it. Bones, that is, dead ones, are nice and neat; and I don't think I should mind setting live ones. Of course it isn't going to be all bones; but I suppose even literature has its disagreeable sides."

"Yes," Theodora assented, with a passing memory of the pillow reposing on the lawn outside her window. "After all, Babe, I think you lack the real artist's devotion to your work. Even mumps ought to be beautiful in your eyes and meningitis a delight to your soul. The day will come that you will give up medicine and take a course in plain cooking, now mark my words."

"Thanks; but I prefer tibias to tomatoes," Phebe responded. "When I am the great Dr. McAlister, you will change your tune."

"There will never be but one great Dr. McAlister," Theodora answered loyally. "No, mother, I must not stay to lunch, not even if Babe would grill her tibia for me. Billy gets very grumpy, if I leave him alone at his meals. Good-bye, Babe. Don't let anything happen to your grooves."

She went away with a laugh on her lips; but the laugh vanished, as she went up to her writing-room once more and paused for a moment before her closed desk. Then her face cleared, as she hurriedly put herself into Billy's favorite gown and ran down the stairs to meet him in the hall. The woes of book-making and the worries of her family never clouded Theodora's welcome to her husband.

CHAPTER FIVE

"Teddy, did you ever hear me say anything about Gertrude Keith?"

"Why—yes. Wasn't she the cousin who married Harry Everard?"

"Your memory does you credit." Mr. Farrington's eyes belied his bantering tone.

"What about her?"

"Nothing about her. She died, the year before we were married, and left Harry with this one daughter. He has had a housekeeper since then; but the housekeeper took unto herself a husband, a third one, a month ago. Now Harry has been having pneumonia and is ordered to southern France for a while, and he wants to know if the child can come to us."

"What?" Theodora's tone was charged with consternation.

"Isn't it awful? And yet I am sorry for him. We're the nearest relatives the child has except Joe Everard, and naturally she can't be left to the mercies of a bachelor uncle. What shall we do, Ted?"

For one short instant, Theodora stared into the fire. Then she looked up into her husband's blue eyes.

"Take her, of course," she said briskly.

Mr. Farrington had never outgrown certain of his lover-like habits. Now he stretched his hand out to hers for a minute.

"You're a comfort, Ted," he said. "I hated to refuse Harry, for his letter was a blue one. Will she be horribly in the way?"

"No; I sha'n't let her," Theodora answered bluntly. "Don't worry, Billy; we shall get on, I know. Have you ever seen her?"

"Once, when she was in the knitted-sock stage of development. She wasn't at all pretty then."

"How old is she now?"

"Hear what her father saith." And Mr. Farrington took a letter from his breast pocket. Its creases showed signs of the frequent readings it had received that day. As he said, he had disliked to refuse the request of his old friend; but he disliked still more to burden his wife with this new care which would be such an interruption to her work. Moreover, the girl would be in his own way.

"Cicely is just sixteen now," he read, "a bright, sunny-tempered child, and, I hope, not too badly spoiled. You will find her perfectly independent and able to shift for herself; all I want is to have her under proper chaperonage. I should take her with me; but the doctor has forbidden my having the care, and I hate to put the child into a boarding-school."

Theodora laughed, as her husband paused for breath.

"The paternal view of the case, Billy. Cicely is a nice, demure little name; but I suspect that the young woman doesn't quite live up to it. Still, I believe I would rather have an independent damsel than a shrinking one. She will be more in my line."

"But do you think you ought to try it, Teddy?" her husband remonstrated. "Won't it be too hard for you? I can just as well tell Harry to put her into a school."

For one more instant, Mrs. Farrington wavered. Then she saw the frown between her husband's brows, a frown of anxiety, not of discontent.

"No; it will be good for us, Billy. We are getting too staid, and we need some child-life in the house. We can try the experiment, anyway; and it will be easy enough to pack her off to school, after we have grown tired of her. Will you write, to-night?"

"If you are sure you think best."

"I do; and perhaps I'd better put a note into your letter. It may make Harry feel easier about leaving the child with strangers. He will find it hard enough, anyway."

She crossed the room to her desk, to write the letter which was to bring new courage to the anxious, exiled invalid. Suddenly she turned around, with her pen in mid air.

"Billy, the hand of fate is in this. The girl may be just what
Allyn needs."

"Ye—es; only it is within the limits of possibility that they may fight."

"Then they will have to make up again, living in such close quarters as this. Besides, that kind of fighting isn't altogether unhealthful. I believe the whole matter is foreordained for Allyn's good."

"It is an optimistic view of the case that wouldn't have occurred to me,
Ted. Still, we'll hope for the best."

Valiantly she took his advice and hoped for the best, while she busied herself about the details of receiving her new charge. March was already some days old, and it had been decided that Cicely should arrive on the twentieth, so the time was short. In the midst of her domestic duties, Theodora found time for some hours of writing, each day, for she had a well-founded fear lest the new arrival might be of little help to the cause of light literature. In the intervals, she and Billy discussed the invasion of their hearthstone from every possible point of view; but as a rule the ridiculous side of the situation prevailed and they had moments of wild hilarity over the coming demands on their dignity.

"Uncle William!" Theodora observed, one day. "It suggests a scarlet bandanna and an ivory-headed cane. She will probably embroider you some purple slippers next Christmas too."

"No matter, so long as she doesn't undertake to choose my neckties. Never mind, Ted; the uncertainty will soon be over. She comes, to-morrow."

"I wonder what she really is like," Theodora said slowly. "Paternal testimony doesn't count for much, and I am beginning to be a little alarmed at what I may have undertaken. Independent and not too badly spoiled are not reassuring phrases, Billy."

"Her mother was as staid as a church, and Harry is sobriety itself, so the girl can't have inherited much original sin from either of them. Independent from Harry's point of view doesn't mean the same thing that it would from yours. She probably is a mild-mannered little product of the times."

"I don't know just what I do want," Theodora sighed. "One minute, I hope she will be a modest violet; the next, I am in terror lest she be too insipid. What are girls of that age like, Billy? It is years since I have known any of them. Just now, I am in doubt whether I may not shock her even more than she will shock me. The modern girl is a staid and decorous creature, I suspect; not such a tomboy as I was."

Late the next afternoon they both drove to the station to meet their new relative. In spite of herself, as the time came nearer, Theodora was inclined to treat the whole affair as an immense joke; but her husband had misgivings. Theodora was fitted to cope with any girl he had ever known; but he feared she might find the process more wearing than she anticipated.

"I beg your pardon, but is this Mr. Farrington?"

Both Theodora and Billy started and whirled around. In the rush of incoming passengers, they had been looking for some one smaller, more childish than this tall girl who stood before them. She was not at all pretty. Her brown hair was too straight and lank and light, and her grey eyes had a trick of narrowing themselves to a line; but her expression was frank and open, and she wore her simple grey suit with an air which spoke volumes for her past training. Across her arm hung a bright golf cape with a tag end of grey fur sticking out from the topmost folds.

"Are you Cicely?" Mr. Farrington inquired.

"Yes, and I suppose you are Cousin William. Papa said I'd know you by your hair." She caught herself, with a sudden blush. "Oh, I don't mean that," she added hastily; "I think red hair is just lovely, only it is rather uncommon you know."

Mr. Farrington laughed.

"Yes, fortunately," he remarked.

Cicely eyed him askance for a moment; then she too burst out laughing, while two deep dimples appeared in her cheeks and a queer little pucker came at the outer corners of her eyes. There was something so fresh, so heartily frank about her that Theodora felt a sudden liking for the girl, a sudden homesick twinge for her own healthy girlhood.

"There, I have made another of my speeches!" Cicely was saying, with a contrition that was only half mockery. "I'm always doing it, and you will have to put up with it. But truly I don't mind red hair, as long as it doesn't curl; and I hadn't any idea of being rude."

"Mine is tolerably straight, and I'm not very sensitive about it now for I have had it for some time," Billy observed gravely. "Cicely, this is your Cousin Theodora."

The girl turned around and stretched out her hand eagerly.

"Oh, I am so glad to be with you!" she said. "It seems to me I've loved you always, just from your books. You are so good to let me come to you. Am I going to be very much in the way? I'll try to be very good, just as good as I know how."

"And not be homesick?" Theodora asked laughingly, as she took Cicely's hand in both of hers.

Instantly the grey eyes clouded.

"I'll try not," Cicely answered. "I know I shall be happy, only—I wish papa needn't go so far away. We are all there are, you know, only Uncle Joe." Her lips quivered a little, as Theodora bent down to kiss them.

"Never mind, dear," she said. "It won't be for so very long, and I hope you can be happy with us, even if we are strangers to you. Can't Cousin Will take some of your things?"

"Oh, no; I've only this cape, and there's no need of disturbing Billy," Cicely replied, too absorbed in rubbing away a stray tear or two to heed the glance of astonishment exchanged between her new relatives at the unexpected freedom of her use of Mr. Farrington's name.

Seated in the carriage, all three were conscious of an awkward pause.
Cicely broke it.

"Cousin Will, don't you feel as if you had a white elephant on your hands?" she asked so unexpectedly that Theodora blushed and wondered if the girl had been reading her thoughts.

"No; only a grey one. I confess you are larger than I expected to see you. When I met you before, you could have been packed into a peck basket."

"They say I was a good baby," Cicely said reflectively; "they always emphasize the word baby, though, and that hurts my feelings."

"You cried a great deal, and you spent half your energy in trying to eat your own toes. You wore worsted slippers then," Billy answered, amused at a certain off-hand ease that marked her manner. "Perhaps you have improved since then."

"I hope so; but there may be room for it, even now," she returned, laughing.

"Are you going to miss your old friends too much, Cicely?" Theodora asked. "I have a young brother about your age."

"Really? I didn't know that. Is he near you?"

"Next door."

"I'm so glad, for I like boys. I have always been used to them, not flirty; papa wouldn't allow that, but just good friends." Cicely's manner showed her constant association with older people. She and her father had been always together, and their companionship had left its mark upon her. There was no trace of shyness in her manner, no hesitation in taking her share in the conversation. She was perfectly frank, perfectly at ease, yet perfectly remote from any suggestion of pertness. She only assumed it quite as a matter of course that it was worth while to listen to her. "Is your brother like you?"

"No; not really. But you can see for yourself, for he promised to call on you, this evening." Theodora prudently forbore to mention that she had obtained Allyn's promise only at the expense of much coaxing and some bribery.

"That will be good," Cicely remarked with satisfaction. "Papa always says that boys are good for girls; they keep you from getting priggish and conceited. They take all that out of you. What is your brother's name?"

"Allyn."

"I'm glad it is something out of the usual run. Have you some sisters?"

"One, at home."

Cicely clasped her hands contentedly.

"I didn't know I was coming into a whole family. I supposed I should just have to get along with you and Billy—not but what you'd have been enough," she added hastily, as this time she caught the glance exchanged between Theodora and her husband; "only it is rather good to have some young people within reach. Still, it isn't going to be all play for me. Papa wants me to keep up my practice, and that takes five hours a day."

"What kind of practice?" Theodora asked, as the carriage stopped at the steps.

"Piano. I play a good deal. Oh, what a dear place this is! Am I going to live here?" And she ran lightly up the steps, too eager to hear Billy's despairing,—

"Ted! Five hours of strumming, every day! What will you do?"

Or Theodora's laughing reply,—

"I can forgive that, Billy; but it is still rankling within me that we are no longer young. Alas for our vanished youth!"

"Alas for the frankness of childhood, you'd better say," Billy responded.

Inside the broad hall, Cicely walked up to the blazing fire and rested one slim foot on the fender for a moment. Then she bent down and carefully unrolled the cape. The tag end of grey fur stirred itself; there was a little growl, a little bark, and a little grey dog squirmed out of his nest and went waddling away across the rug.

"Mercy on us! What's that?" Theodora gasped, as the little creature shook himself with a vehemence which fairly hoisted him off his hind legs, then flew at the nearest claw of the tiger skin and fell to worrying it.

"That?" Cicely's tone was tinged with a pride almost maternal. "That's
Billy. He is a thoroughbred Yorkshire. Isn't he a dear?"

CHAPTER SIX

"Do you know where Billy is?" Theodora asked, coming into the library, one evening.

Cicely glanced up from her book.

"He was here, just a few minutes ago."

"Patrick wants him."

"Who?"

"Patrick."

Cicely looked surprised and closed her book.

"What does Patrick want of him, Cousin Theodora?"

"Why, really, Cicely, he didn't tell me. Did you say he was here just now?"

"Yes, the last I saw of him, he was asleep under the piano."

"Cicely! Oh, you mean the dog."

"Yes. Don't you?"

"No; I meant my husband."

"Oh, I haven't seen him since dinner." And Cicely tranquilly returned to her book, while Theodora departed in search of Mr. Farrington.

"Cicely," she said, when she came back again; "I am sorry; but I am afraid Billy's name will have to be changed."

"Which?" Cicely inquired, as her dimples showed themselves.

"Yours. Mine is the older and has first right to the name. Do you mind, dear? It is horribly confusing and it startles me a little to hear that my husband is asleep under the piano."

The girl laughed, while she tossed her book on the table.

"As startling as it was to me, this noon, when you said my dog was putting on his overcoat in the front hall. It doesn't seem to work well, this duplicating names. What shall we call him,—the puppy, I mean?"

"Melchisedek, without beginning and without end, because his tail and ears are docked," came from the corner.

"Oh, are you there, Babe?"

"Yes, I had some studying to do, and they were too noisy at home, so I came over here. I'm through now, so I am going home. Cicely, I wish you would let me see how many vertebra there are left in Billy's tail. I think he hasn't but one. That is butchery, not surgery, for it doesn't leave him enough to waggle." And Phebe gathered up an armful of books and took her departure.

Silence followed her going. Theodora had dropped down on the couch before the fire and lay staring at the coals. For the moment, she was forgetful of the girl sitting near her, forgetful even of her story which was pressing upon her insistently, yet eluding her just as insistently. In certain moods, she loved the old willow couch. It had played a large part in her girlhood; and now at times it was good to turn her back upon the present and think of the days when, after the memorable Massawan Bridge disaster, Billy Farrington's boyhood had been largely spent upon that lounge and in that library, while she had brought the fresh zest of her work and her play and all her gay girlish interests into his narrow life. Her father's skilful treatment had laid the foundations for the cure which the years had completed, until to-day her husband was as strong a man as she could hope to see. Year after year, her life had grown better and brighter; yet she loved to linger now and then over the good old days. She pressed her cheek into the cushion, and her lids drooped to keep the modern actual scene from destroying the old-time imaginary one.

"Tired, Cousin Ted?" Cicely had dropped down on the couch beside her.

"Not a bit."

"Worried?"

"No, indeed."

"I was afraid something was wrong, you were so quiet." The girl bent over and fell to touching Theodora's hair with light fingers. Suddenly she stooped and snuggled her face against Theodora's cheek. "Oh, I do love to cuddle you," she said impulsively. "I hope you don't mind. Papa used to let me; I wonder if he doesn't miss it sometimes."

Putting out her arm, Theodora drew the girl down at her side.

"Are you homesick, Cicely?"

"For papa, not for anything else. If he were here, or even well, I should be perfectly happy here. Only, Cousin Theodora—"

"Well?"

"Are we very much in the way, Billy and I? We don't belong here, I know; and it isn't our doing that we came. Are you sorry that we are here?"

"No. I am glad to have you with us, Cicely."

Theodora spoke the truth. In some strange fashion she had grown unaccountably fond of Cicely during the past four weeks. The girl was no saint; she was only a clean-minded, healthy young thing, born of good stock, trained by a wise father who believed that, even at sixteen, his tall daughter was still a child, not a premature society girl. He insisted upon plain gowns and a pigtail, upon hearty exercise and wholesome friendships with boys as well as with girls. So far as lay in his power, he had taught Cicely "to ride, to row, to swim, to tell the truth and to fight the devil," and the result was quite to the liking of Billy and Theodora. They enjoyed Cicely's irresponsible fun and her frank expressions of opinion; they enjoyed the atmosphere of ozone that never failed to surround her; they even confessed, when they were quite by themselves, to a sneaking sense of enjoyment in her rare flashes of temper. True, it was not always helpful to Theodora to be roused from her work by the monotonous er-er, er-er of scales and five finger exercises, and there were moments when she wondered if pianos were never built with only a soft pedal and that lashed into a position which would entail chronic operation. There were moments when the house jarred with the slamming of doors and echoed to the shouts of a high, clear young voice; and there were hours and hours when Melchisedek, as he was now to be called, whimpered without ceasing outside her door, with an exasperating determination to come in and sit supreme in the midst of her manuscript.

And then there was Allyn to be considered.

In her most optimistic moments, Theodora had pictured Cicely as a dainty, clinging little maiden who would cajole and coddle Allyn out of his unfriendly moods. Cicely certainly did rouse Allyn from those moods; but it was by no process of feminine cajolery. She went at him, as the phrase is, hammer and tongs. Good-tempered herself, she demanded good temper from him. Failing that, she lectured him roundly. Failing again, she turned her back upon him and left him severely alone, with the result that, in an inconceivably short time, Allyn generally came to terms and exerted himself to be agreeable once more. Allyn still kept up the pretence of indifference to her, of superiority over her; Cicely had no pretences. She showed her liking for him frankly; just as frankly she showed her disgust at his hours of gloom.

Upon one point, however, Allyn maintained a firm stand. He would put up with no endearments. Theodora was the only person who dared lay affectionate hands upon him, who dared address him in affectionate terms. Just once, in the early days of her being in the Farringtons' household, Cicely, moved with pity at the sight of a bruised forefinger, had ventured upon a caressing pat on Allyn's cheek. It was much the caress she would have bestowed upon Melchisedek, if she had chanced to step on his paw; but she never forgot the look of disgusted scorn with which Allyn had marched out of the room. Accustomed from her babyhood to petting her father and being petted by him, the girl was at first at a loss to interpret the situation. When the truth dawned upon her that Allyn was really in earnest, she refused to be suppressed, and persecuted the boy with every species of endearment which her naughty brain could invent.

"Oh, but you are the dearest boy in the world!" she announced, one day, walking into the library at The Savins where Allyn sat reading.

"What do you want now?" he asked gruffly.

"You, of course. I'm lonesome, and I want your society."

"Let my hair alone," he commanded, ducking his head, as she approached his chair.

"I'm not touching it."

"No; but you do sometimes, and I won't have it."

"Yes, it seems so like Melchisedek's that I love to straighten the parting," she said demurely, as she came around to the fire. "Where is Phebe?"

"Playing with her everlasting old skeleton."

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to read, if you'd let me be," growled Allyn, with a despairing look at the book in his hand. "What do you want?"

"You."

"What do you want of me?"

"I'm so fond of you. Besides, I am tired of being alone. Don't you want me to play for you?" Cicely's eyes shone mischievously, as she made the offer.

"Not for a farm. I don't like your diddle-diddles; they haven't a particle of tune to them."

"Come and take me to ride, then."

"Why don't you go alone? I'm busy."

Cicely took forcible possession of his book.

"Allyn, you must come. I've a bad attack of the blues."

"Get rid of them, then."

"That comes well from you."

"What's the matter, Cis?"

"Papa isn't coming home till fall, and I've got to stay here."

Allyn looked up sharply. Then he whistled.

"You don't mean it!"

She nodded, without raising her eyes, and Allyn suddenly discovered that her lids were unusually pink.

"Do you mind it so much?" he added. "Or is he worse?"

"No; only the doctor wants him to stay over there till the lung is all in order again."

"And you are homesick?"

"No,—yes,—a little," she said despondently. "But it's not all that."

"What is it, then?"

"It's the being left here till called for, like a sack of potatoes. Cousin Theodora is too polite to say so; but I know she must wish I were in—Dawson City. It's dreadful, Allyn, not having any real home."

"If that's the way you feel over there, you'd better come here to The
Savins and stay," he suggested.

The dimples came back into Cicely's cheeks.

"We should fight, Allyn."

"Who cares? It's only skin deep," he returned, with a sudden gravity which surprised her.

She looked at him steadily for a moment. Then she held out her hand to him.

"Let's not any more, then."

He touched her fingers gingerly, gave them a sudden squeeze and then plunged his fists into his pockets.

"Come on and ride, if you must," he said ungraciously.

She had never seen him in a brighter mood. He chattered ceaselessly, quaint stories of his schoolboy friends, quainter jokes and whimsies and bits of advice for her edification. In such moods, Allyn was well-nigh irresistible, and it was with genuine regret that Cicely turned her face towards home. Her regret, however, was as nothing in comparison with the consternation that seized her, as she entered the house. Before the fireplace in the hall, there always lay the skin of a superb tiger. To-night, before the tiger lay Melchisedek, and before Melchisedek lay a triangular scrap of brownish fur. As Cicely entered, the dog looked up with a bland smile; but the smile changed to a snarl, as she came near and stooped to view the ruin he had wrought. Then he rose, gripped his booty in his sinful little teeth, and trotted before her to the library door. On the threshold, he appeared to come to a sudden realization that justice was in store for him. His mien changed. The pointed, silky little ears drooped, and walking on three legs, stiffly and as if with infinite difficulty, he preceded his mistress to the fireside and laid the severed ear of the tiger on the floor at Theodora's feet, while Cicely exclaimed penitently,—

"Cousin Theodora, what will you do with us? It's bad enough to have me stranded on your threshold, without having Melchisedek hunting big game in your front hall."

The words were flippant; but the tears were near the surface. Billy interposed, for he saw Theodora's color come, and he knew that the rug, his own contribution to her college room, was one of her dearest possessions. He shook his head at the six-pound culprit who stood before him, waggling his stumpy tail in smug satisfaction over the success of his undertaking.

"Change his name to Nimrod, Cis," he said gravely; "and send for Babe to mend her first emergency case."

CHAPTER SEVEN

"Where is Babe?" Dr. McAlister asked, one noon in late May.

"Here." Phebe's voice came from the piazza outside.

"Can you ride over to Bannook Bars, this afternoon?"

"Yes, I suppose so. What for?"

"As substitute for me. Mrs. Richardson has consumed all her pills, and she wants some more."

"Why doesn't she get them, then? You're not an apothecary."

"She refuses to take them, unless I inspect them personally. These are the patients who try one's soul, Babe. I would rather deal with Asiatic cholera than with one fussy old woman with a digestion. They eat hot bread and fried steak, and then they eat pepsin."

"Start a cooking crusade," Phebe suggested lazily. "Well, I'll go."

"Thank you. You need the ride anyway; it will do you good, for you have been working too hard lately. I don't want my apprentice to wear herself out." The doctor patted her shoulder with a fatherly caress; then he turned to go into the house.

"Give me leave to prescribe for Mrs. Richardson?" she called after him.

"Yes, I make her over to you, and you can date your first case from this afternoon," he answered.

"No; I'd rather have something a little younger and more interesting. I will be ready to start, right after lunch."

The office door closed behind her father, and Phebe let her book slide from her knee, as she rested her tired eyes on the fresh green lawn before her. For the past three months, she had worked hard, eager to prove that her home-coming had been inspired by no sudden whim, still more eager to win her father's professional approval. Her work was interesting; and yet at times bones and arteries and nerves had a tendency to pall upon her. She had never dreamed that so much drudgery would attend the early stages of her professional studies. She was heartily sick of the theoretical, and she longed for the practical. She had even teased her father to let her go with him on his rounds. Instead, he had laughed at her and prescribed a further course of drudgery.

"Never mind." she said to herself sturdily. "I'll get there, some day. I won't always carry pills to old women; and when I do get a real case of my own won't I astonish them all!" And events justified her assertion.

She was still sitting there, dreaming of future deeds, when Allyn came out to the veranda.

"Oh, Allyn?"

"Hullo, sawbones!"

"What are you going to do this afternoon?"

"Nothing."

"Don't you want to ride with me?"

"Maybe. Where?"

"To Bannock Bars."

"What for?"

"To take some pills to Mrs. Richardson."

"Not much. Mrs. Richardson is frabjous and a gossip."

"What if she is? You needn't talk to her."

But Allyn shook his head.

"Not if I know myself. I'll oil your wheel for you, Babe, and pack your pills; but I won't go within range of Mrs. Richardson, for she gives me the creeps."

"She won't hurt you."

"No; but she makes me feel clammy in the spine of my back, and then she gives me good advice. I'll tell you, Babe, I'll go and get Cis, and we will ride part way with you. If two people escort you half way, that is as good as having one of them go all the way. Besides, I never feel quite easy when I am all alone with you. If anything happened, you might be moved to experiment on me, and that would be fatal."

On the veranda, after luncheon Allyn and Phebe stood waiting for Cicely. She came running across the lawn at last, trim and dainty in her short grey suit.

"I am sorry to be late," she panted; "but I had to stop to chastise Melchisedek. I found him asleep in Cousin Theodora's fernery. It was so soft and cool that I suppose it tempted him, this hot day, poor little man! But aren't you forcing the season, Babe?"

Phebe looked down at her immaculate duck suit.

"No; it is almost the first of June, and so warm. Besides, I am only going out to the wilderness. I am clean and comfortable, and that is the main thing."

"Unless we get a shower," Allyn suggested.

Phebe looked up at the sky.

"There isn't a cloud in sight, Allyn. It's not going to rain, I know."

"It's sultry. You can't ever tell about a day like this. Still, if you want to risk it,—"

"I do." And Phebe mounted her bicycle.

The Savins lay at the western edge of the town. Beyond it, the road to Bannock Bars led away straight toward the sunset, over hill and hollow, through stretches of sand and along narrow footpaths. It was a road to terrify an amateur; but Phebe's riding was strong and steady, and she was glad to be in the saddle once more, forgetful of her work and only conscious of the sweet spring life about her. It was only an hour later that The Savins was ten miles behind her, and she was setting up her wheel against Mrs. Richardson's stone horse-block.

Mrs. Richardson met her accusingly.

"I hope you've got them pills," she demanded, without any formal preliminaries.

"Yes, my father has sent them."

"I wrote for them, day before yesterday. I thought sure they'd come yesterday."

"He was busy," Phebe said curtly, as she took off her sailor hat and fanned herself.

"Jim Sykes said he see him drivin' off over Wisdom way."

"Yes, he had a case there, an important case." Phebe's head was tilted at an aggressive angle.

"I guess I was some important, or he'd have said so, if he'd see me, last night. I had a bad spell, and like to fainted."

"What had you been eating?" Phebe inquired, with a sudden access of professional severity.

"Be you his youngest girl?" Mrs. Richardson asked rather irrelevantly.

"Yes."

"The one that was in Paris?"

"Yes."

"I wonder at your father's lettin' you go. They say it's an awful wicked city, and I hear it's nip and tuck whether a person comes home as good as she went."

"I didn't find it so."

"Maybe not. Still, it's risky and I don't think much of folks that don't find America good enough for 'em. You look hot. Come in and get a drink of water."

Inside the house and with a glass of water in her hand, Phebe felt that it devolved upon her to make some efforts at conversation.

"You said you were worse, last night; didn't you? What were the symptoms?" she asked, between her sips.

"What's generally the symptoms? I felt sick and wanted to keel over."

"Had you been—?"

"No; I hadn't. You tell your father that I'll tell him about it, when he comes. I ain't goin' to be doctored by hearsay. Did you see Sol Bassitt's barn, as you come over the hill?"

"I came by the lower road."

"What did you do that for? It's a good mile further."

"Yes; but it's better riding, that way."

"You'd better go back over the hill. The barn's worth seein', the best one this side of town." Mrs. Richardson rocked to and fro in exultation at having some one to listen to her month's accumulation of gossip. Bannock Bars was an isolated hamlet, and visitors were few. "Sol's girl, Fannie, has gone to Oswego for a week. She's had scarlet fever, and it left her ailin'. It's too bad, for she is a likely girl."

"Very likely," Phebe assented, half under her breath.

"What?"

"I said it was extremely probable."

"What was?" Mrs. Richardson glared at her guest who was tranquilly waving a palm-leaf fan.

"That Fannie is a good girl."

"Well, she is," Mrs. Richardson returned shortly.

There was a silence, while Phebe inspected the black cambric binding of her fan, and tried to gather energy to go out into the hot sun once more. Mrs. Richardson had rocked herself into more placid humor.

"They've got a boarder over to Sykes's," she resumed.

"Have they?" Phebe spoke indifferently. Bannock Bars was too near town for her to realize how countrified it was, how the coming of a single stranger could stir the placid current of its existence.

"He's from New York, Bartlett is his name, or some such thing. They say he's a music feller."

"A what?" Phebe wondered whether Mrs. Richardson had reference to a member of a German band. The words suggested something of the kind.

"A feller that writes music. I don't know anything about it only what they say. Anyhow, he's brought a pianner with him, and they say he bangs away on it like all possessed, and then stops short and scolds. I went past there, one day, when the windows was open, and I heard him thumpin' and tiddlin' away for dear life. It didn't seem to me there was much tune to it, nor time neither; you couldn't so much as tell where one line left off and the next begun."

Phebe's fan slid out of her lap, and, as she stooped to pick it up, she dropped her handkerchief.

"Have you seen him?" she asked, when she was upright once more.

"How?"

"Have you ever seen this Mr. Bartlett?"

"Yes. He goes round in one of these short-pant suits and great coarse stockin's and shoes, and he never acts as if he knew what he was about. Half-baked, I call him. He holds his head like this, and he struts along as if Bannock Bars wa'n't half good enough for him. Mis' Sykes says he ain't a mite fussy, though, takes what she gives him and don't complain. Land! If he can stand Eulaly Sykes's cookin', he must be tough."

"Perhaps he will keel over, some day," Phebe suggested.

"I should think he would. But then, they say folks like him eat all sorts of things at night suppers, so I suppose he is used to it." She rocked in silence, for a moment; then she went on, "What do you find to do with yourself, now you're home again? You was with Mis' Farrington's folks; wasn't you, she that was Theodora McAlister?"

"Yes."

"She does a good deal of writin', I hear. Does she get much out of it?"

Phebe hesitated, assailed by doubts as to how large a story Mrs.
Richardson would swallow, and her hostess swept on,—

"She's spreadin' herself a good deal, and it can't all be her earnin's.
Do you take after her?"

"No; I am studying medicine."

"I want to know! What for?"

"To be a doctor, I suppose." Phebe rose and put on her hat.

Mrs. Richardson took a step towards her.

"You don't want a skeleton; do you?" she asked. "I've got one I'd sell cheap."

For one instant, Phebe hesitated. Unexpected as was the offer, it appealed to her. There was a certain dignity in having one's own skeleton; it was the first step toward professional life. That one instant's hesitation settled the matter, for Mrs. Richardson saw it and was swift to take advantage of it.

"It belonged to His sister's husband," she said, with a jerk of her head toward the portrait of her late husband. "He was a doctor and, when he died, all his trumpery was brought here and stowed away in our garret. It's as good as new, and you can have it for five dollars."

"I—don't—know," Phebe said slowly.

Mrs. Richardson interposed.

"I don't want to be hard on you. 'Tain't a very big one, and it ain't strung up," she said persuasively. "You can have it for three. It's a splendid chance for you."

Phebe yielded.

"Well, I'll take it, if it is all there."

"I'll get it, and you can let your father count it up. I'm willing to leave it to him." And Mrs. Richardson went hurrying out of the room.

She was gone for some time. When she came back again she bore in her arms a bundle, large, knobby and misshapen. It was wrapped in newspapers which had cracked away here and there over the end of a rib; but it was enclosed in a network of strings that crossed and crisscrossed like a hammock.

"I thought you might just as well take it right along with you," she said. "You can send me the money in a letter, if it's all right, but land knows when you will be here again, and I hain't got anybody to send it by."

Phebe looked appalled. In a long experience of bicycling, she had scorned a carrier, and she stood firmly opposed to the idea of converting her wheel into a luggage van.

"I can't carry that," she said.

"Yes, you can. Just string it over your forepiece and it will go all right. It ain't heavy for anything so bulky. I'll help you tie it on." And she prepared to execute her offer.

"Oh, don't! At least, I'm much obliged; but—Oh, dear, if I must take it, I suppose I must; but I think I'd better tie it on, myself."

"Just as you like. You'd better hurry up a little, though, for I shouldn't wonder if it rained before sundown."

"Rain? Then I can't take this thing." Phebe paused, with the string half tied.

"Oh, I'll risk it. Besides if you don't take it, there's a man in
Greenway that will."

Phebe looked at her hostess, shut her teeth, jerked the knot tight, and was silent; but there was a dangerous gleam in her eyes, as she mounted and rode away, with her three-dollar skeleton clattering on the handle-bars before her.

CHAPTER EIGHT

There is a certain inconvenience coupled with being called upon to pose as a genius at the comparatively early age of twenty-six. Popular theory to the contrary, notwithstanding, it is easier to plod slowly along on the path to fame. Greatness does not repeat itself, every day in the week. But fate had overtaken Gifford Barrett, and had hung a wreath of tender young laurels about his boyish brow. He deserved the wreath, if ever a boy did. Two years before, fresh from the inspiration of his years in Germany and of his German master, he had composed his Alan Breck Overture. It would have been well done, even for a man many years his senior, and it quickly won a place on the programmes of the leading orchestra's of the country. He had known what it was to be called out from his box at the Auditorium or Carnegie Hall to bow to the audience, while the orchestra thumped their approval on their music racks. He had been hailed even as the American Saint Saens, and it was small wonder that he began to feel the wreath too tight a fit for his brows.

His family was well known and, from the first, society had claimed him for her own. He had the gift of talking well, of dancing better; and he had found it easy to drift along from day to day, neglecting his music for the sake of the invitations that poured in upon him. In his more conscientious moments, he told himself that he would do all the better work as the result of seeing the life of his native city; but so far its influence had been only potent to move him to write a triplet of light songs and to dedicate them to three of the prettiest girls in his set, no one of whom was able to sing a note in tune.

At the end of the second season, a reaction set in. The public was clamorous for a new work from him; he was tired of being lionized by people who called his beloved overture pretty. The madness of the spring was upon him, the spirit of work had seized him, and the middle of May found him and his long-suffering piano installed in the "north chamber" of the Sykes homestead at Bannock Bars.

He had chosen the place with some degree of care, in order to be sufficiently remote from society to work undisturbed, sufficiently near civilization to be able to buy more music paper in case of need. Ten miles of even a bad road is not an impassible barrier to an enthusiastic bicyclist; yet the place was as rustic and countrified as if it had been, not ten, but ten hundred miles from an electric light. His digestion was good enough to cope even with Eulaly Sykes's perennial doughnuts, and it was in a mood of supreme content that he settled into his quarters in the wilderness. It was years since he had watched the on-coming of the New England summer; he watched it now with the trained sense, the inherent quickness of perception of the true artist who realizes that the simplest facts of the day's routine by his touch can be transmuted into glowing, vivid material for his work.

It must be confessed that Eulaly Sykes occasionally mourned to her friends over the irregularities of her boarder. His hours of work passed her comprehension, his work itself filled her soul with wonder and disgust. In his moments of inspiration when he was evoking the stormy chords of the introduction to his symphonic poem, Bisesa he never dreamed that his landlady was craning her head up from her pillows in a vain effort to discover the tune, or to reduce it to the known terms of short metre rhythm. His broken, irregular measures troubled her, as did also his broken, irregular hours of work. There were days when he rode far afield, or was seen lying on his back under the pines by the brookside, listening to the splash of the water, the hissing of the air through the boughs above him. After such days, his piano was wont to sound far into the night, and Eulaly, as she slept and waked and still heard her boarder's fingers crashing over the keys, reproached herself bitterly.

"Them last doughnuts was too rich," she used to say to her old-fashioned bolster, set up like a grim idol by the bedside; "and the poor feller can't sleep. I mustn't put so much shortenin' in the next ones. My, but that was an awful scrooch! I wish he'd shut his windows a little mite tighter, and not pester the whole neighborhood."

This state of things had endured for two weeks, and the symphonic poem was progressing as well as its composer had any reason to expect. Already it was bidding fair to rival the Alan Overture and Mr. Barrett began to carry his nose tilted at an angle higher than ever, as if in imagination he already scented the fresh laurels in store for him. Pride goeth before destruction. A long day under the pines resulted not in inspiration, but in an uninspiring cold in his head; his temper suffered together with his nose, and Eulaly Sykes, below stairs, chafed her hands together at the sounds of musical and moral discord which floated down upon her ears. All the morning long, he smote his brows and his piano by turns. The new motif he was seeking, refused to be found.

Later, fortified by Eulaly's fried chicken and rhubarb pie, he tried it again, invitingly playing over the preceding motif in every possible key and tempo. It was of no use. He slammed down the top of his piano, tore across a half-finished page, caught up his cap, mounted his bicycle and rushed away up the road, quite regardless of the clouds lying low in the western sky.

Fifteen miles of scorching over country roads sufficed to bring him to a calmer mood, and he turned his wheel towards the Sykes homestead once more. The motif was still as far beyond his grasp as ever; but there were other things in life besides elusive motifs. The increasing blackness above his head was one of them; his hunger was another, and he quickened his pace. His piano might be awaiting him in mute reproach; but then, so did Eulaly's doughnuts await him, and there was no reproach in those, at least, not until some time later. He fell to whistling a strain of his overture, as he rode swiftly along, quite unconscious of the fact that disaster, in the person of Miss Phebe McAlister, was riding quite as swiftly to meet him.

Three miles from his boarding-place, the storm overtook him with a rush which straight-way reduced the roads to the consistency of cream. He looked about for shelter; but no shelter was at hand, and the road meandered along before him uphill and down again with an easy nonchalance which appeared to take no account of the pelting rain. It was hard riding and dangerous, but he pushed on manfully, while the streams of water trickled down his neck and along the bridge of his nose. As he reached the crest of the hill, he saw before him, just crawling over the crest of the opposite hill, a figure on a bicycle coming swiftly towards him. Even at that distance, he could make out a bedraggled white suit, a limp sailor hat and a vast pulpy bundle lashed to the handle-bars.

"Some country maiden, coming home from market," he said to himself. "I
Hope she is enjoying the shower."

Then of a sudden, he braced himself for a shock, for a bell was clanging wildly, and a cry rang out upon his ears,—

"Oh, go away! Be careful! Get out of the way! Quick!"

He turned aside, out of the path of the flying wheel. It sounds a cowardly thing to have done, and doubtless the knights of old would have contrived a way of rescue. To the latter-day knight, however, there was something inevitable in the on-coming of the wheel, with its rider's feet kicking in a futile search for the pedals. It reminded him of his own futile search for his motif. Both searchers seemed equally helpless to attain their objects. Moreover, when a tall and muscular maiden sweeps down upon one, leaving behind her a train of shrieks and scattered phalanges, there is absolutely nothing for one to do but to get out of her way as expeditiously as possible. No use in breaking two necks, and—the critics were waiting for the symphonic poem.

He turned, then, to the right-hand edge of the road. Phebe was bouncing along over the stones dangerously near the other gutter, and he already was congratulating himself upon his escape. Then in a moment the situation was changed. The runaway wheel flashed into a mud puddle, veered and before his astonished eyes shed a rib or two and a clavicle from the swaying bundle, veered again and collided with his own wheel. In another instant, the right-hand gutter held two muddy bicycles, the greater portion of a human skeleton, Phebe McAlister and the composer of the Alan Breck Overture.

An experienced bicycle teacher once said that no woman ever picked herself up from a fall, without saying that she was not at all hurt. True to tradition, Phebe staggered to her feet, exclaiming,—

"Thank you; but I'm not hurt in the least. I'm so sorry—"

Then she paused abruptly and stared at the stranger in the gutter. He lay as he had fallen, his face half buried in the mud and his right arm twisted under him. More frightened than she had been in all her headlong descent of the hill, she bent over him and tried to turn him as he lay. Gifford Barrett was an athlete as well as a musician, however, and it took all of Phebe's strength to stir him ever so slightly. As she did so, she disclosed a gash where his temple had struck upon a stone, and his right arm swung loosely out from his side. Phebe McAlister had suddenly found herself in the presence of her first case, and the presence was rather an appalling one.

In any crisis, the mind attacks a side issue. Phebe rose from her knees, took off the sodden thing which had been her hat, and carefully covered it over her saddle. Her face, underneath the streaks of mud, was very white, and her lips were unsteady. Then she pressed her hands over her eyes, bit her lips and gave her shoulders a little shake. That done, she knelt down in the mud once more and set herself to the task in hand, wondering meanwhile who and what her victim might be.

Obviously he was a gentleman. His firm, clean-cut lips alone would have settled that point to her satisfaction. Beyond that, she had no possible clue to his identity. The situation was a trying one. The nearest house was a mile away; the rain was still pelting heavily down upon them, and she, Phebe McAlister, was alone in the storm with a perfect stranger whom she had knocked from his bicycle, stunned and perhaps injured for life. To whom did he belong? What should she do with him? If he died, who would be responsible, not for the injury, but for making the funeral arrangements? For a moment, the unaccustomed tears rushed to her eyes, and, seen through their mist, her victim seemed to be expanding until he filled the whole landscape and surrounded her by dozens, all plastered with mud and begirt with whitened bones. Then she pulled herself together again. The stranger's arm was broken, his forehead bloody. She must see what she could do for him, then go for help.

There was a long interval when the noise of the rain was interrupted by little groans and exclamations from Phebe, while she tugged and shoved and pried at the man in the road. He was so very big, so very unconscious, so very determined to lie with his face buried in the mud and meet his end by suffocation. At last, she drew a long breath, mustered all her strength and gave him one pull which turned him completely over on his back. As she did so, his eyes opened dully and by degrees gathered expression. He looked up into her mud-stained face, down at his mud-stained clothes, around at the mud-stained skull which lay close to his side and grinned back at him encouragingly.

"What the deuce—" he faltered. Then once more he fainted away.

Twenty minutes later, Phebe was rushing away to the nearest house in search of help. There was but one house within reach, however, and fate willed that she should find that deserted. She hesitated whether she should ride on for two miles farther, or go back to her victim, and she decided upon the latter course. It seemed hours to her before she reached the top of the hill again. Then she stopped short, dismounted and stared down the slope in astonishment. Her victim had vanished from the scene. Only the skull remained to mark the spot where he had lain, two deep tracks in the soft mud to show the way by which he had gone.

"Well, Babe?" Allyn's voice hailed her, as she rode wearily up the drive, the water squelching in her shoes and her soaked skirt flapping dismally about her pedals. "Were you out in all that shower?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you go under cover?"

"There wasn't any cover to go under." Phebe's tone was not altogether amicable.

"But the mud? It's all over your face, and your wheel, and your hair."

"I fell off."

"Where?"

"Coming down Bannock Hill. I lost my pedals, and my wheel slipped in the mud."

"Bannock Hill? That's a bad place to fall. Break anything?"

"You can look and see."

But Allyn was not to be suppressed.

"Where's your hat?"

She started slightly and raised her hand to her head. It was bare.

"Oh, yes," she said unguardedly. "I remember now. I must have left it where I sat."

"Sat!" Allyn stared at his sister in amazement. "What did you do? Sit down to study the landscape?"

But Phebe stalked up the steps and into the house, and Allyn saw her no more until dinner-time.

Two days later, Allyn burst into the office where Phebe was bending over a book. In his hand was an unfolded newspaper which he flapped excitedly, as she looked up.

"There are others, Babe."

"What do you mean?"

"This. Listen! Oh, where is the thing? Here it is, in the Bannock correspondence of the Times. Listen! 'Mr. G. Bartlett, the musician who is sojourning at Mr. Jas. Sykes's farm, sustained a bad fall from his bicycle on Bannock Hill, last Tuesday. His injuries are serious, including a cut on his temple and a compound fracture of the right arm. Dr. Starr reduced the fracture and reports the patient as doing as well as—' you see somebody else slipped up on that hill, Babe. You ought to feel you came out of it pretty well."

Phebe looked up with a frown.

"Go away, Allyn; I'm busy," she said sharply.

Three weeks later, Phebe had occasion to make another trip to see Mrs. Richardson. This time, she chose the hill road, the one which led past the Sykes farm. Gifford Barrett was sauntering along by the roadside, smoking. His arm was in a sling, his hat drawn forward, half concealing the patch of plaster on his temple. As she passed, Phebe looked him full in the face, and instinctively his hand went to his cap, though without any sign of recognition.

"Some girl that's heard the overture," he said to himself. "I don't seem to remember her, though. She has a good figure and she rides well; but what a color! She will have apoplexy, some day, if she's not careful."

The next day, Eulaly Sykes's boarder had started for the Maine coast where three unmusical, but sympathetic maidens were waiting to help him pass the dreary days of his convalescence.

CHAPTER NINE

Two willow chairs were swaying to and fro in the gathering dusk, and two voices were blended in a low murmur. Theodora and Billy were exchanging the confidences born of a long week of separation while business had called Mr. Farrington to New York.

"How comes on the book, Ted?"

She shook her head.

"It doesn't come."

"Does Cicely's being here disturb you?"

"No, not really; not nearly so much as Melchisedek. In an unguarded moment, I asked him, one day, to come and help auntie write books. Since then he rushes from his breakfast straight to my room and capers madly on the threshold till I appear."

"And then?"

"Then he insists on lying in my lap and resting his head on my arm, and he snarls, every time I joggle him. It isn't helpful or inspiring, Billy."

"No; I should say not. What is the story, Ted?"

"I'm not going to tell even you, Billy," she returned quickly. "It always demoralizes me to talk over my stories while they are evolving. I must work them out alone. It seems conceited and selfish; but there's no help for it. You believe it; don't you?"

"I'll trust you, Ted. But is this hero very hectic?"

It was an old joke, but they were still laughing over it when Cicely appeared in the doorway, with Melchisedek under her arm.

"Cousin Theodora?" she said interrogatively, for the piazza was dark.

"Yes."

"I want to talk."

"You generally do, Cis," Billy observed unkindly.

"Yes; but I mean I have something to talk about. I don't always."

"Shall I go away?" he asked politely.

"No; I want a man's view of it, too. But perhaps you were busy and I'll be in the way."

For her reply, Theodora drew another chair into the group. Cicely sat down, balanced Melchisedek on her knee and fell to poking his grey hair this way and that, as if at a loss how to begin the conversation.

"How far is it safe for a girl to follow up a boy?" she asked abruptly, yet with a little catch in her breath.

"Meaning yourself?" Billy queried.

"Yes, of course."

"I should say it depended a good deal on the boy."

"I mean Allyn."

"What's the matter? Have you had a falling out?"

"Yes, we are always doing it. I can't seem to help it, either. It's horrid. He is outspoken and tells me what he thinks of me; I'm peppery, and I don't like it."

"I know, dear," Theodora said gently, for she read the girl's irritation in her voice. "Allyn isn't always as polite as he might be; but we must try not to be too sensitive."

"I'm not sensitive," Cicely said forlornly. "I like him, though, and I want him to like me, and it hurts my feelings when he doesn't."

"How long has the present feud lasted?" Billy inquired.

"Almost ten days. It's the worst one yet, and it started from nothing. I know he is your brother, Cousin Theodora; but—I really don't think it's all my fault."

"No." Theodora's voice suggested no mental reservation. "I know how it is, Cicely. Allyn has been my baby and my boy; but, much as I love him, I can't help seeing that he is cantankerous and cross-grained at times. But it is only at times, Cis; it isn't chronic."

"I wish it were. Then I shouldn't mind it so much. But when he isn't cross, he is one of the jolliest boys I have ever known. That's the worst of it, for I miss him so, when we squabble. When we are on terms, I don't care about anybody else; and so, when we are off, it leaves me all alone."

"When I squabbled with your Cousin Theodora," Billy said oracularly; "I generally felt I had done my share, and I left her to do the making up."

"So I observed," his wife answered; but Cicely was too much absorbed in her subject to heed the parenthesis.

"I'm willing to make up," she said, as she twisted Melchisedek's ears with an absent-minded fervor which caused the sufferer to whimper; "but how can I? He just goes off his way, and leaves me to go mine. I hate to tag him; besides, I don't know but he really wants to get rid of me. Hush, Melchisedek! Don't whine. I didn't intend to hurt you. That's what I meant, Cousin Ted, when I asked you about following him up. How far is it safe to go?"

"Till you get there," Mr. Farrington replied.

"Billy!" his wife remonstrated.

"All right, Ted; but I'm not altogether joking. I know boys better than you do. It's not easy for them to come down off their dignity; and, nine times out of ten, when they scowl the most darkly, they are really wishing that they knew how to come to terms. I must go down town now, Cis; but my parting advice to you is to corner Allyn and bully him into shaking hands. The boy is an ungracious cub; but he is sound at the core, and I honestly think he is fond of you in his dumb way."

After he had left them alone, Cicely dropped down on the floor at
Theodora's feet.

"Life isn't a straight line; it's horribly squirmy," she said, and her voice vas unusually grave.

Theodora drew the brown head against her knee.

"What is it, dear?" she asked.

"It's only Allyn. I don't know what the reason is that we can't get on. I've known lots of boys, and I never squabbled with any of them before. And I don't know why I care so much. Sometimes I really think I am good for Allyn and can help him out, and I am disappointed because he won't let me; but I more than half think it is only my vanity, after all."

"Was it a bad fight?"

"Awful." In spite of herself, Cicely laughed at the recollection. "He wound up by telling me that I was no lady, and he didn't care to have anything more to do with me. Since then I have hardly had a glimpse of him."

"I hadn't noticed that anything was wrong between you," Theodora said thoughtfully.

"No; we both of us are old enough not to quarrel in public. But I can't see any end to this. I care for Allyn a great deal, and I miss him; but if he does not want me for a friend, I can't force him to take me. I'm not a pill, to be swallowed whether or no."

"Perhaps I could help a little."

Cicely shook her head.

"No; we were the ones to fight, and now we must be the ones to make up, without any go-betweens. Papa has always told me that dignity doesn't count in a case like this; and I'm willing to do anything reasonable. The only trouble is that I don't know what Allyn really wants. If he truly does wish I would let him alone, I don't see any use in my hanging on to him. Just once, more than a month ago, he said something that made me think he cared, and was glad to have me here; but it was only once, and maybe I was mistaken. It isn't forever since you were a girl, Cousin Theodora. What did you do in such cases?"

Theodora rapidly reviewed her past.

"I think I never had just such a case, Cicely," she said honestly. "Hu and Billy were my two best friends; and I don't think either one of them ever had a cross-grained day in his life. I was generally the aggressor, myself."

Cicely rubbed her head against Theodora's knee in mute contradiction.

"But what should you do in my case?" she persisted.

"I don't know. Sometimes I can't tell what to do in my own. Allyn is rather a puzzle."

"He's worse than an original proposition in geometry. I want to solve him and I can't. Papa has always taught me that we girls have a good deal of responsibility, and that we can help our boy friends a good deal, or else hinder them. Perhaps I am conceited; but it seems to me as if I could help Allyn, if I could get at him. Besides—" she hesitated.

"Well?" Theodora said encouragingly.

"Oh, it's silly to tell; but sometimes I wonder whether it wouldn't help you a little, at the same time. I'd love to feel it did; you have been so good to me. I know you worry about Allyn. You watch him as a cat watches a mouse, and you always seem to understand his queer ways and know just how to manage him. I wish I could do it as you do."

Theodora was silent for a moment. Then she bent down and laid her cheek against the brown chair.

"Cicely," she said; "those eyes of yours have a trick of seeing deeper into things than you suspect. We have gone so far that we may as well go a little farther. Allyn is very dear to me; but I do worry about him more than I like to tell. He is headstrong and obstinate; worse than that; he is moody, and there is his great danger. Under it all, he is a splendid fellow; but I am afraid he will turn sour and hard. It grew on him fast, last year, while I was away, and the next two or three years will settle the matter, one way or the other. Ever so much is going to depend on keeping him happy and jolly. He hasn't many friends left, and he needs all those he has, needs to trust them and feel they trust him and care a great deal for him, whatever he says or does. If you want to, you can help me in this."

There was a short silence. Then Theodora went on,—

"Every girl has the making of at least one boy, if she manages him in the right way. I agree with your father in that, Cis, agree with him with all my heart. She must forget, though, that they are boy and girl, and only remember that they are comrades. Flirting never helps things. But a girl has more patience than a boy, as a rule, and more tact. Where a boy fights, she waits till the time comes for her to put in a word that tells. Moreover, she is willing to stand by her friends through thick and thin, if she has any conscience at all, and most boys go through an age when every such loyal friend counts in holding them steady. A girl that neither preaches nor flirts, can sometimes carry a boy through hours when his own mother would be helpless to manage him. It's a great gift in the hands of you girls, Cis; and it shouldn't make you careless or conceited, but very conscientious in the way you use it."

"I think I understand why Cousin Will looks at you just as he does sometimes," the girl said slowly. "But about Allyn?"

"You can do whatever you choose with him," Theodora answered quickly. "Allyn is very fond of you, Cis. I know him better than you do, and I know that he cares a good deal more for you than you suspect, even if he does take queer ways of showing it. You have it in your hands to help him over one of the worst spots in his life."

"How?"

"By making up with him and, if he fights again, making up again. Keep friends with him, keep him bright and interested and healthy. I don't mind his being cross half so much as I do his going off by himself and looking glum. If you are willing, Cicely, you can do more to break that up than I can."

The girl shook her head.

"I can help; but you stand first, Cousin Ted."

"Not in this. I'm related to him, and I am a great deal older than he is. Those are two serious handicaps, sometimes. He will come to me always probably in emergencies; at least, I hope he will, but it is the steady companionship that counts for more than this, the chance to lessen the friction in all manner of little things. There I am helpless. Allyn knows that I have my house and my writing and my husband to look out for, and he would be on his guard directly, if he saw me turn my back on them and give my time to him. But, Cicely, this is asking a great deal of you."

"Not so much as it sounds," the girl said earnestly. "I'm not all a child, Cousin Ted; and I have watched Allyn a good deal. It hasn't seemed to me that things went right with him; but there was nothing I could put my finger on, nothing at all. I like him, and I like to do things with him, even if he is younger; but I don't want you to think I am horrid and forward with him, when he doesn't want me."

She was silent for a moment, while Melchisedek licked her face, unrebuked. Then she rose, pushing the dog gently away.

"Is this what you mean, Cousin Theodora: that it will be a good idea, for me to do things with Allyn, to care for the things he likes, and, if he gets cross and goes off not to care, but just go after him and bring him back again?"

"If you feel as if you could, Cicely."

"I do; I'd be glad to. Sometimes I wonder if any one else were ever half so good fun; sometimes I wonder how such a grumpy thing can be a McAlister," she said, with thoughtful frankness. "It's the grumpy side that must be kept under, I suppose; but he isn't real sweet to handle under such circumstances."

"I know that," Theodora answered, as she rose and stooped to pick up Melchisedek who was pulling at her skirts appealingly. "But it's only the chance of helping him forget to be grumpy, till he outgrows the habit. It isn't that I want to spoil him, Cicely. It wouldn't do any good to coddle him or give in to him. Just keep out of all the skirmishes you can; and when he forces you into one, do what you can to establish a truce. Most boys go through this thorny age; it's as inevitable as mumps, but Allyn is taking it very hard, and we want to break it up before it becomes chronic. Do you see what I am driving at, dear?"

"Enough so that I am going to wave the olive branch, to-morrow," she answered, laughing. "If he ignores it, I'll try it again in some other form. I only wanted to make sure that you approved of my meddling." She put her hand through Theodora's arm and together they paced up and down the broad piazza. Above them, the stars were dotting the still, dark air, and the ragged outline of The Savins showed itself faintly through the great trees. "His eyes have looked so heavy, the last day or two," she added, as she looked across to the light shining out from Allyn's window. And again, after a long interval, "It's not so easy, after all, Cousin Ted, this being a girl."

CHAPTER TEN

"Teddy, I am worried about Allyn."

"What is the matter? Isn't he well?"

"Yes, only rather listless. It isn't his health I am worrying about; it is his character."

"He will come out all right," Theodora said cheerily, for it was rare to see her father in a despondent mood, and the sight distressed her.

"Perhaps; but it seems to me that something is wrong with the boy. He isn't like the rest of you."

"Mercifully not; and yet we were all queer sticks," Theodora observed tranquilly. "We appear to be working out our own salvation, though, whether it's writing or bones, and Allyn will probably follow our example when he is old enough."

"I wish he might. He is giving me more trouble than all the rest of you put together, and the worst of it is that I don't know whether he needs a tonic or a thrashing." The good doctor knitted his brows and endeavored to look stern. "I suspect it is the latter," he added.

Theodora shook her head gayly.

"It wouldn't be of any use, papa. We must bide our time. Allyn is queer, most mortal queer; but these may be the mutterings of genius, a volcanic genius that is getting ready to erupt."

"I never regarded bad temper as a sign of genius."

"Perhaps not. But, even if it isn't, thrashings only leave callous spots.
You'd better try the tonic."

They had been walking up and down the front lawn. Now they turned, as by common consent, and strolled away towards a more distant part of the grounds.

"Is anything new the trouble?" Theodora asked, after an interval.

"No; only that his school reports get worse and worse, and that he appears to have a perfect genius for losing friends."

"Even the warty James?"

The doctor laughed.

"I can't blame him for half his antipathies," he said; "and that makes it hard for me to corner him in an argument. The boy was born with a hatred of dirt and of lying and of toadying, and he is utterly intolerant of anybody who shows anything of the three. His theories are all right, only his way of carrying them out makes him rather unpopular. But what is worrying me now is his school work. He isn't stupid; but his marks are away below par."

"You might try the tonic," Theodora said. "But what about Babe?"

"Don't ask me, Ted. That girl defies prediction. She always did. One day, I think she will bring glory to us all; the next, I want to turn her out of my office. She is as smart as a steel trap; but she is as lawless as Allyn. It's in a different way. I blame them both; but I am sorry for him, while I want to shake Phebe. She could do anything she chose, but she never really chooses. Sometimes I think she is only playing with her study. The next day, she astonishes me by some brilliant stroke that makes me forgive all her past laziness. She's splendid stuff, Ted, only she needs a balance-wheel. The fact is, the girl is selfish. She isn't working for love of her profession and the good it can do to others; all she cares for is the pleasure she takes in it, the pride that it brings her. That may do in some lines; but a doctor must think beyond that and outside of himself and his own interests."

"That's true of most of us," Theodora said; "at least, that is what we are aiming at."

"Some of us; not all. Teddy, you are a comfort to your old father."

"Even if I did help to turn his hair grey?"

He shook his head.

"You used to rush headlong into things, Ted; but you never went very far astray, and now—"

Theodora seized his arm.

"Hush!" she said, pointing to the shady spot under the trees where Allyn lay on the grass with Cicely by his side. The girl was bareheaded, and one shaft of sunlight, slanting down between the oak leaves above her, struck across her brown hair and across her hand as it lay on Allyn's outstretched palm.

"Come, papa, let's leave them there," she added. "Cicely is a better doctor for Allyn than either you or I."

It was the third day after her talk with Theodora, and Cicely had not so much as caught a glimpse of Allyn, though she had dropped in at The Savins repeatedly, on the chance of finding him at home. Whether the boy had turned his back upon the world, or was merely trying to keep out of her way, she was at a loss to determine. However, she saw no use in taking the whole family into her confidence, and she apparently gave her entire attention to Mrs. McAlister and Phebe, while in reality her grey eyes were keeping a sharp lookout for the missing boy.

At last she made up her mind that indirect methods were useless. Siege failing, she determined to carry the place by assault.

"Where is Allyn?" she demanded, as she came up the steps of The Savins with Melchisedek at her heels.

"I don't know. Get away! Shoo! Cicely, do call your horrid dog away." And
Phebe brandished a scalpel threateningly.

"Here, Melchisedek, come here!"

But Melchisedek, his paws planted on the hem of Phebe's skirt, was barking madly and making little lunges at something in her lap.

"Get out! Ugh! Do go away! Cicely, call him!"

Cicely stooped and caught up the wriggling little creature who protested loudly, as she tucked him under her arm.

"Might I inquire what that choice morsel is, Phebe?" she asked disdainfully.

"It's a chicken's gizzard," Phebe answered shortly.

"Oh, and you were having a private lunch out here. Beg pardon for disturbing you." Cicely's eyes were dancing, and the dimples in her cheeks were at their deepest; but Phebe never looked up. "Poor little Melchisedek!" the girl went on. "Wouldn't his old Aunt Babe give him one little bittie piece? Well, it was too bad. Do you lunch out here from choice, Babe; or were you sent away from the table?"

"Don't be silly, Cicely. Can't you see I am studying it?"

"What for?"

"To see how it's made."

"Oh, then it's science, not hunger. It's all right, Melchisedek; she is learning things, not eating them. But what was it you said about Allyn?"

"Nothing."

"Please do say something, then. I want him."

"Ask mother," Phebe said absently. "Oh-h, there now!"

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing, only it's tough. Do go on."

"Gizzards generally are. If I can do you any little good turn in the way of table scraps, Babe, don't hesitate to mention it." And Cicely departed in search of Mrs. McAlister.

"No," she said; "I mustn't stay. I only want Allyn."

"I saw him go across the hill, just after lunch. He had a book with him, and you may find him reading, somewhere over there. Don't hurry."

"Thank you; I must go." And she went away across the lawn.

She found Allyn quite at the farther side of the grounds, lying in the tall June grass with his arms folded under his head. Face down beside him was a book; but his thoughts were elsewhere and quite apart from the great tree above him into which he was staring so fixedly. Instinctively he had chosen the most beautiful spot in the grounds where the land sloped away to the west, across a salt marsh all bright with greeny brown grasses, and onward into the open country beyond. At the north, a faint line of white smoke marked the path of a passing train; at the south could be seen a small blue patch of ocean.

In the thick grass, Cicely's steps were noiseless, and Melchisedek considerately neglected to bark, so Allyn was unconscious of her approach. He started suddenly, as she dropped down at his side.

"What do you want?" he asked gruffly.

"You."

"I'm busy."

"You look it," she said merrily, as she pointed to the book against which Melchisedek had promptly braced his back while he searched for a missing burr that he had accumulated in the course of his rambles.

"I wish you'd go away," he grumbled.

"I'm not doing any harm," she said composedly. "You don't own this place, anyway."

"My father does, then."

"He won't turn me out."

"Wish he would and done with it." Allyn rolled over on his side with his back inhospitably turned to his caller.

Her dimples came ever so little. Then she said quietly,

"What a dear, courteous soul you are, Allyn! Please do listen to me, for
I've come to tell you something."

"Tell away, if you want to." He pushed aside Melchisedek who had stolen up behind him and pounced down upon his ear.

"I want to make peace."

"Make it."

"But if it takes two to make a quarrel, it probably takes two to make a peace. Allyn, I am tired of fighting. Let's make up."

"What's the use? We should only fight again."

"Perhaps; but sufficient unto the day—We might try it and see."

He made no answer. Instead, he dislodged Melchisedek from a seat on his neck, and reached out for the neglected book. Cicely anticipated him and grasped it first. Quickly she dropped her coaxing tone and became curt and matter-of-fact.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Dutch."

"Not reading it for fun?"

"Not if I know myself. It's grammar."

"Isn't it hard, though?"

"Beastly. I can't get it into my head. Don't believe anybody can." And Allyn sat up and vented his spite against the language by hurling a stone against a distant birch tree.

"What are you studying it for now?" Cicely demanded, as Melchisedek scurried, yelping rapturously, in search of the flying stone.

"Got to, or else be conditioned."

"I don't believe it is as bad as that."

"Yes, 'tis. I barely scraped through, last Christmas, and papa told me then that, if I failed now, I couldn't go to Quantuck, but must stay here alone with him and work all summer."

"And so you are trying to be on the safe side?"

"Not any safe side about it. I was warned, a week ago."

"How horrid!" Cicely said sympathetically. "It won't be any fun at Quantuck without you. I was counting on having you to explore things with, you know. I've never been there."

"You'll have to take it out in counting, then."

"I don't see why. You're only warned, and it's two weeks before examination."

"Yes; but I can't get the blamed stuff into me."

"Perhaps I could help you," she suggested.

"You!" Allyn's tone was not altogether complimentary, and Cicely was uncertain whether she wanted to laugh or to box his ears. "Do you know any German?"

"Papa and I used to talk it a good deal," she said demurely; "and I know something about the grammar."

"Why, I didn't know it. I didn't suppose you knew anything but music." In his honest boyish wonder, Allyn's voice regained something of its old friendliness.

"Yes, I was almost ready for college; but, when I came up here, papa said I'd better take a vacation and only keep up my music," she answered, in an off-hand way which gave Allyn no hint that he was talking to the show pupil of Professor Almeron's school. "It was great fun at first; but now I am honestly sick of having so much vacation and I'd love to take up my German again if I only had somebody to do it with."

"Do you like to study?"

"N—no; but I don't mind it. I like to practise better."

"I hate it all. I wish I weren't going to college."

"What do you for, then?"

"Oh, I'm expected to. They all take it for granted. Ted did, and Hubert and Billy. I hate languages, though. I'd like to cut the whole thing."

"What do you like?"

"Drawing."

Cicely clasped her hands in sudden envy.

"Oh, I do love pictures! Can you draw? I never saw any."

"I never drew a picture in my life." Allyn's tone was disdainful.

"What do you draw then?"

"Machinery, of course. Wheels and pulleys and things. It's such fun to fit them together, Cis, and see how you can get the power across from one to the other."

Her eyes flashed at the use of her nickname once more. She felt that the feud was forgotten, as she asked, with an interest which was not all feigned,—

"Have you any of them?"

"Not here; but lots of them in my room. I do them, evenings and all sorts of off times, and some of them aren't so simple as they look, either."

"Has anybody seen them?"

He shook his head.

"What's the use? Phebe's bones are bad enough. The house wouldn't hold two cranks. Nobody else knows."

"I want to see them," she asserted.

"They aren't anything to see. Besides, you couldn't understand them."

"I'm not so sure of that. At least, you might try me."

"Anyhow, I like them lots better than I do this stuff." He thumped the
German grammar viciously.

"Why don't you do them then?"

"No good."

"I mean instead of college."

"Papa wouldn't let me."

"Have you ever asked him?"

"What's the use? He wants me to be a doctor."

"Do you want to?"

"No. Babe is enough to make me sick of doctors," he answered with brotherly frankness.

"I like doctors, myself; but I'd rather be a good machinist than a bad doctor."

"So would I, a plaguy sight," he muttered; "but the others wouldn't stand it."

"I can't see why," Cicely said thoughtfully. "It is smutty work, and it doesn't sound exactly aristocratic; but soap is cheap, and you aren't obliged to eat out of a tin pail. Allyn, I'd do it if I were in your place."

He turned to face her, and his brown eyes were lighted with his enthusiasm.

"I wish I could," he said excitedly, his words tumbling over and over each other. "Ever since I was a little bit of a fellow, I've liked such things, machinery and all that. I've felt at home with it and wanted to handle it. I hate school and the things the fellows care for, girls and dancing school and that stuff—I don't mean you, Cis; you're more like a boy,—and I hate worst of all the everlasting Greek and Latin. It is out of my line; I can't see anything in it. There's some sense in machinery. You can handle it, and mend it, and make it go, and maybe improve it. That's enough better than things you get out of books. Do you suppose there would be any chance of their letting me cut school and go into a shop?"

With a boy's eager haste, now that his secret was out, he was for dropping everything else and rushing headlong into his hobby. Cicely counselled patience.

"Wait," she said, as she rested her hand on his for an instant. "You're only fifteen, and there is plenty of time to decide. It is worth trying for, and I think perhaps you may get your way; but, first of all, you'll have to prove that it isn't just because you are too lazy to study Greek and German that you want to give it up. If you pass good examinations, this June, your chance will be all the better. Then you can go off, this summer, and take time to think it over. By fall, you can tell what you really do want; and, if your father is the man I think he is, and if you behave yourself in the meantime, I believe you will get it." She paused and, for the second time in her acquaintance with him, she felt Allyn's fingers close warmly on her own; but he only said,—

"You're not half bad for a girl, Cis."

"And when shall we begin our Dutch?" she asked, determined to clinch the fact of their treaty of peace.

"When can you?"

"To-night. Come over at eight, and I'll be ready. We'll take an hour, every evening and I'll do fudge afterward."

The dinner bell was sounding at The Savins, as Cicely and Allyn came strolling homeward. It was evident that they had been for a long walk. Melchisedek's tail drooped dejectedly, and Allyn carried a sheaf of nodding yellow lilies, while Cicely had the despised grammar tucked under one arm and a bunch of greenish white clovers in the other hand. They came on, shoulder to shoulder, talking busily, and Theodora as she watched them, was well content.

At the table, Cicely ignored the events of the afternoon

"Allyn is having a bad time with his German and I am going to see if I can help him," was all she said. "Are you going to use the library, this evening?"

CHAPTER ELEVEN

"'Lit-tle ones to him be-long,
Vey are weak, but he is strong.'

"Mam-ma-a-a!" Mac's burst of psalmody ended in a roar.

"Yes, Mac. Here I am."

"Where?"

"Upstairs, packing."

Mac toiled up the stairs and into his mother's room.

"I fought maybe you wanted to see me," he observed. "What for you putting all vose fings into ve box?"

"Because we are going to see grandpapa and Aunt Teddy, and then we are all going to the seashore."

"What is ve seashore?"

"The ocean, the great, broad blue water without any edge to it, where the waves keep tumbling over and over on the beach."

"What's beach?" he demanded. Always used to the mountains, the phraseology of the sea was a new tongue to him.

"It's the edge of the water," his mother said absently, while she tried to fold an organdie gown to the best advantage.

"But you said vere wouldn't be any edge," he protested, for he was nothing if not logical, and he insisted upon logic from others.

"Well, never mind now. Run away, dear, and I'll tell you about it, some other time."

But Mac festooned himself across the open box couch.

"No; sometime isn't ever, and I wants to hear it now. I do 'clare, mamma, you've put in my best coat." And before she could stop him, he had pounced upon it and pulled it out, upsetting a superstratum of gowns in the process.

"Mac, let that be."

"But I want it, mamma. I want to wear it. I look just too sweet in it."

"Mac!"

"Well, vat's what Lizabuf said. Will Lizabuf go too?"

"No."

"Who will take care of me, and put me into my coatsleeves ven?"

"I shall."

"I'd ravver have Lizabuf. Oh, mamma, is vat your swishy dress? It's so beautiful!" This time, Mac lost his balance and plunged headlong into the trunk. For one moment, his chubby legs waved in the air; then his mother seized him and set him down in a chair at the farther side of the room.

"Now, Mac, I want you to stay there," she said with decision.

There was a brief silence. Then Mac remarked,—

"You act and look awful bangy, to-day, mamma, just as if you were going to sweep rooms right away."

Five days later, Mrs. Holden acknowledged to herself that she felt "bangy." It was her first long journey without her husband and, less independent than her sisters, she would have dreaded it in any case. Without Mr. Holden, the trip was an undertaking; with Mac, it was almost insupportable. She embarked with a lunch basket, with picture books and with theories. She landed, a chastened woman. Within twelve hours, the basket was empty, the picture books were in shreds, and Mac, bareheaded, coated with cinders and wreathed in smiles, was prancing up and down the car, heedless of her admonitions. By day, the other passengers petted him and encouraged him to all manner of pertnesses. At night, they murmured, not always among themselves, when he waked up and in stentorian tones demanded a drink. No child of three is altogether a desirable companion on a long journey, least of all McAlister Holden. Small wonder that it was a pale and haggard Hope who drove up to The Savins, one night in late June, while Mac was as vivacious as at the start!

He went through the introductions with the nonchalance of his years, though he resisted Theodora's efforts to kiss him, and sniffed disdainfully at Phebe who was trying for her sister's sake to conceal her dislike of children. By Mrs. McAlister's side, he paused and looked straight up into her face. Then he tucked his hand into hers confidingly.

"Are you my grandma?"

"Yes, dear."

"Why, you look too new," he said frankly, and then put up his rosy lips for a kiss. For the moment, the cherub side was uppermost, and his mother, as she reflected upon the permanence of first impressions, rejoiced that it was so, and she hurried the child off to bed, for fear he might do something to destroy the illusion.

"Mamma," he said sleepily, as she left him, to go down for her own dinner; "will you please tell me just vis much?"

"Well?"

"Were you a mamma when you lived here before?"

"No, Mac."

"And now you've grown out into a beautifully mamma. Good-night!" And he went to sleep with the saintly side of his character still uppermost.

The Farringtons and Cicely dined at The Savins; but, directly after dinner, Cicely excused herself and went home to do some practising.

"No; I suppose it could wait," she said to Allyn who followed her to the door; "but it must be done some time. It is ages since you were all here together, and you ought to be just by yourselves to-night."

"But you are one of the family," Allyn protested.

"That's nice of you, Allyn; but it isn't quite the same thing. Besides, if I practise now, I shall have more time for fun, to-morrow. Go back to your sister. Isn't she a dear?"

"Yes, Hope is a good one," Allyn said, though without much enthusiasm; "but Ted is worth ten of her, according to my notions." And Cicely nodded up at him in token of agreement.

By the time dinner was over, the evening had grown chilly, and the
McAlisters drew up their chairs around the open fire.

"All here once more, thank God!" the doctor said contentedly, as he settled himself between Theodora and Mrs. Holden.

"This seems just like the good old times," Theodora added. "It's five years since we were all here together, like this. Doesn't it make you feel as if you had never been away, Hope?"

"Yes, almost. If Allyn weren't quite so grown up and Billy so lively, I should believe we were children again. Ted, do you remember the first night that Archie came here?"

"The night I went slumming and stole the child? I should say I did. Archie didn't take it kindly at all, when he found the infant in his bed."

"That reminds me, papa," Phebe said abruptly; "Isabel and I want to take some fresh-air children, next week."

"Why, Babe, I don't see how you can," Theodora remonstrated.

"I didn't ask you, Teddy. I have thought it all over, and I can't see any objections. I should take all the care of it, and I want to do it."

"But the house is so full, Babe," Mrs. McAlister said. "There isn't any room for one."

"It could sleep on the lounge in my room. I wouldn't let it trouble you any. It is a fine charity, and this is such a good place for a child to play. Isabel will take one for a week, if I will, and I said I would. There is just time, before I go away," Phebe said with an air of finality which would have ended the subject, had it not been for Allyn's last shot,—

"They'd better get its life insured, then, for there's no telling how long it will be before Babe takes it as a subject for her scalpel."

"Don't be foolish, Allyn," Phebe returned; but Hubert interposed,—

"Isn't Archie going to come on at all, this summer, Hope?"

"I'm afraid not. Summer is his busy time, and he will be out in camp till snow flies."

"I don't see the use of having that kind of a husband," Phebe observed severely.

"You like the kind like me better; don't you, Babe?"

"No; I should get sick of having you everlastingly around the house, Billy. I want a man to have hours and stick to them, not keep running in and out. I sha'n't marry. If I did, I would insist on a ten-hour law; then I could be sure of getting some time to myself."

"Archie lives on a ten-month law," his wife said regretfully. "Of course, I can go out to camp to be with him; but it's not good for Mac. He picks up all the talk of the miners and retails it at inopportune times, and runs wild generally. Archie usually comes home for a day, every two or three weeks; but, this year, he is too far out for that, so I thought it was best for me to come East now."

"You had an easy journey; didn't you?" Hubert asked.

"Yes; at least, as easy as it could be with Mac."

"I think you have slandered Mac," Mrs. McAlister observed. "He seems as gentle as a cooing dove."

Hope and Theodora exchanged glances, as Hubert said laughingly,—