"Then I'm going, too."

"No, you aren't."

"But I will. Why not?"

"Because I don't want you. You're so noisy you tire Billy."

"No, I don't. Boys don't get tired so easy. Besides, he asked me to come."

He shook himself free from her hands. She ran around him and danced down the walk before him, laughing like a mocking elf. All at once, she found herself in Hubert's strong arms.

"Now, Babe, you must go back. I don't want you."

"What can I do?" she whined. "Everybody's gone. Mamma has gone to ride with Mrs. Farrington, Hope's away, Teddy's away, and you're going."

"But mamma told you to stay and play with Allyn."

"I don't like Allyn. I want to go with you."

"You can't."

"I will."

She struggled to free herself. Hubert was tall and strong for his years, so that his sister was powerless in his grasp. He stood for a moment, holding her, while he pondered what to do; then a sudden amused light came into his eyes. Turning, he went away to the barn where, still holding Phebe with one hand, with the other he rolled an empty barrel into the middle of the floor and brought out a bushel basket. Then, before his astonished sister could fathom his intention or rebel, he had popped her into the barrel, covered her with the basket which made a firm, close lid, and walked away to the Farringtons' house.

It was the last of the golden Indian summer, and cold weather was at hand. By this time, the two households were living on a most informal, friendly basis. Mrs. Farrington and Mrs. McAlister had dropped back into the old intimacy of their college days, and the young McAlisters were fast finding out that a boy was a boy, in spite of a crippled back and a wheeled chair. Hubert and Billy were good friends, and Hope treated the invalid with a gentle, serious kindness which won his heart as surely as her dainty beauty appealed to his eyes. And yet, after all, it was Teddy for whom he cared the most, Teddy who coddled him and squabbled with him and ordered him about by turns. For the sake of her bright, breezy companionship, of her original, ungirl-like way of looking at things, he endured the ordering and the coddling, and, in spite of the halo of sanct.i.ty which should have surrounded his semi-invalidism, it must be confessed that he bore out his own part in the squabbles.

Even the coddling, as time went on, came to be rather enjoyable. There was nothing sentimental about it; it was only the natural result of the strong instinct of motherhood which belongs to such natures as Theodora's. Moreover, there were days and days when the old pain came back to Billy and racked him until he was too weak for the wheeled chair, and he could only lie on the sofa and endure the pa.s.sing hours as best he might. In those days, Theodora never failed him. She learned to know the flush of his cheeks, the glitter in his eyes, and her brisk step grew gentle, her clear, glad voice grew low. Strange to say, it was on those days that Billy wanted her. He seemed to gain rest from her exuberant strength; and Hope he regarded as the pleasant companion for his better days, when he could laugh and talk with her, and treat her with the chivalry which her delicate prettiness appeared to him to demand. It mattered less about Theodora, he told himself. She was only another fellow, and she could be treated accordingly.

Hubert had made his call upon Billy and departed again, and Phebe had freed herself by tipping over the barrel, turning herself about, and kicking away the basket; and still Theodora sat in the Farringtons' cosy library, beside the open fire. Billy delighted in reading aloud, and he had been reading to her for an hour, while she sat dreamily watching the fire. Then he dropped the book face downward on his knee, and little by little their desultory conversation stopped. All at once, Theodora started up.

"Oh, dear, I forgot. I told papa I'd do an errand for him, and I must go."

Billy yawned.

"Wish I could go, too."

She looked at him suddenly.

"Why don't you?"

"As how?"

"In your chair, of course. You needn't think you can walk yet, even if papa does say you are gaining, every day."

"Really, do you want me to go, too?"

"Of course. Shall I call Patrick to bring the chair?"

"I've my whistle, you know." He played with it irresolutely. "Are you sure I won't be in the way?"

"What nonsense!"

She stood leaning on the mantel while Patrick made ready the chair.

Then, moved by some sudden sense of delicacy, she busied herself with her own wraps when the man bent down and lifted his young master in his strong arms. Since the first day of their meeting, she had never seen Billy moved, and she was struck more keenly than at first with the contrast between the utter limpness of his lower limbs and the bright activity of the rest of the boy. For an instant, her heart gave a quick thump, half of pity, half of loyalty and protecting affection. Then she laid her hands on the bar of Billy's chair.

"That's all, Patrick," she said, nodding up at the tall man beside her.

Patrick surveyed her approvingly. He was critical by nature, and his smiles were rare; but he liked Theodora for her kindness to his young master, and he unbent something of his majesty before her, rather to the surprise of Mrs. Farrington, who was quite accustomed to seeing her guests quail before the glance of her serving-man.

"Sha'n't I be going with you, Miss Theodora?" he asked.

"Of course. What do you suppose I am going to do without you?" Billy answered.

But Theodora interposed.

"You needn't come, Patrick. I am going to take Mr. Will, myself."

"Oh, I say, Teddy!" Billy straightened up in his chair.

"That's all right," she said gayly, as she pushed the chair away from the steps. "Let me do it, Billy; it's much nicer to go by ourselves without any Patrick, and I promise not to upset you."

"But you oughtn't to do it; 'tisn't the sort of thing a girl ought to do," he urged. "Truly, Teddy, I don't feel as if I could stand it, somehow."

Looking into his eyes, as he turned to face her, Theodora read his sensitive reluctance to receive a service of this kind from a girl, and a friend of but a few weeks' standing. She let go the handle of his chair and came forward to his side, where she bent over him, under the pretext of settling one of the cushions which had slipped aside.

"I wish you'd let me do it for you, Billy," she said, looking honestly down into his appealing eyes. "I know girls don't usually do this sort of thing for boys; but it isn't for always, you know, and there isn't much that I can do for you. If we're going to be real, true friends, you oughtn't to mind it a bit. You'd do ten times as much for me. Please say I can take you out often, till you are so you can run away from me. You know you'd rather go with me than with Patrick." And she looked down at him with a merry frankness which took away the last shade of sensitiveness which Billy was ever to know in her company.

It was the first of many similar expeditions. The chair was so light, and Theodora was so strong for her years, that it never tired her, while Billy soon discovered that "a walk" with Theodora was quite another thing from the dull and decorous outings when Patrick tooled him along through the town, in a solemnly respectful silence. With Teddy's hand on the bar of his chair and Teddy's chatter in his ears, in a week he learned more of the town than he had done in the past three months, and he came home, hungry and eager as a boy could be, full of blithe gossip and fun, to enliven his mother over the dinner-table.

"Tell you what, it was a good day for us when we came here," he remarked, one night in December, when he and his mother were settled by the open fire in the library.

His mother looked up from her book.

"How do you mean?"

"Everything, especially the Macs. There's Mrs. Mac for you, and Teddy for me. What more can you want?"

"What about Hope?"

"Hope is a stunner, only there's a sort of Sundayfied flavor to her.

Theodora is better for every day. Hope goes with my best necktie; 'tisn't always that I am able to live up to her. Ted doesn't care whether I am sick or well, dressed up or rolled in a blanket; she sticks to me just the same. I say, mother?"

"Well?"

"Are we going down to New York, this winter?"

"Not till later, unless you want to go. Aren't you feeling as well, Will?" This time, Mrs. Farrington threw aside her book and came forward to her son's side.