Billy looked up at her with merry eyes which were the duplicate of her own.

"How you do worry about me, mother!" he said. "I'm gaining, every day, and you ought to know it. I shall be walking soon. But you've been saying that we'd go down, some time after Christmas, and I wondered why we couldn't take Teddy along with us. I can't discover that she's ever been anywhere, and it's time she had a chance. Don't you think so?"

Mrs. Farrington looked thoughtful.

"I don't know but you're right, Will. I've been thinking I'd like to give her a little treat, if only because she has been so loyal to you. I had thought of something else; but if you think she'd like this better, we'll see about it. Would you rather have Teddy than Hubert?"

"Yes, I like Ted better, even if she is a girl. Hubert has more variety, too, and wouldn't care so much about it."

"Very well; I will see about it," Mrs. Farrington repeated.

Her son looked up at her gratefully.

"What a trump you are!" he said.

CHAPTER SEVEN

"Well, let's see." Teddy curled one foot under her, in the depths of the great easy-chair. "There must be two heroines, of course, and two,--no, three heroes."

"What'll you do with the odd one?" Billy asked.

"Kill him, to be sure." Theodora smacked her lips. "When the girl, his girl, you know, marries the wrong man, he will--" She paused and meditatively twisted the end of one of her long pigtails.

"Will what?"

"That's what I'm thinking about. It must be something original, not poison nor drowning. I know; I'll have him turn sleepless, and get up--No, he'll be a sleep-walker. He must dream that her house is on fire, and get up to save her, and walk into the barn and be kicked to death by her pet horse. She'll find him there in the morning, when she goes to give him sugar." In the triumph of her lurid ending, Theodora made havoc of her p.r.o.nouns.

Billy pondered on the situation, clasping his hands under his head and turning to face his friend.

"Um-m. That's not so bad," he said at length. "It might possibly happen, even if it isn't likely. I had an uncle that somnambulated, and he used to hide the sheets in an old carriage in the barn. I suppose he might just as well have gone into a stall. Well?"

"And the other men would marry the girls. This one, the dead one, would be dark and sallow, with high cheek-bones and a thin nose. The others would be more commonplace. I think I'd have them something like Hu and you."

"Thanks."

"Oh, I don't mean you are too common; but you aren't a bit like my ideal hero," Theodora said bluntly. "I like the dead one best. I always do in stories, if he's only hectic enough. I asked papa once what hectic meant, and you ought to have heard him laugh when I told him the reason I wanted to know."

"Great shame I'm not hectic!" Billy commented. "What about the girls?"

"One is light, with yellow hair and very much fun in her. She's the one the dead man likes. The other is tall and still and stately, like a lily, with soft, dark hair that droops and is caught up with rare old combs."

"How many?"

"Oh, one at a time, of course, only she has ever so many, all of them of old silver. Stop interrupting! She sways when she walks."

"Gout or intoxication?"

"Keep still, Billy, or I won't tell." Theodora's tone was impatient.

There were liberties which not even Billy was allowed to take, and this story, the outcome of her girlish dreams, was a sacred subject to her.

She had pondered over it for months, and now that she felt the time had come to begin the actual work of writing, she was revealing the secret to Billy. Mrs. Farrington was spending a long rainy afternoon in her own room, writing letters, and the two young people had the library to themselves. For the most part, Billy was listening in respectful silence; but his sense of humor would a.s.sert itself occasionally, and Theodora, like all budding authors, was sensitive to ridicule.

Her threat was enough.

"I won't any more, Ted," Billy returned meekly; "only, if she wobbles like that, I don't see what keeps her combs from tumbling out. Don't make her too lop-sided, or else don't match her up to the man like me. I want girls that are put together tight. That's one reason I like you."

Theodora was only half appeased by the intended compliment. She had a secret liking for the "sweet disorder in the dress," and, of late, she had vainly attempted to achieve it.

"That's all right," she said rather loftily; "only you know everybody doesn't feel the way you do."

"Of course," Billy a.s.sented hastily. "What are their names, Ted?"

"The dark one is Violet Clementina Ascutney, and the little blond one is Marianne--with a final _e_--Euphrosyne Blackiston. The men are Eugene Vincent and Gerald Mortimer, and the dead one is Alessandro Stanley Farrington."

"Oh, great Caesar, Ted! I can't stand that. Why can't you have a good plain Jack?"

"Jack is fearfully commonplace, and names do count for so much in a story."

Billy groaned.

"Maybe. Anyhow, you've got to leave out the Farrington. I can't go that.

Which does Marianne-with-a-final-_e_ take?"

"That's just it. She's left an orphan, rich as can be, and she asks Violet to live with her. Violet is the only daughter of a decayed Southern family, who had to teach for a living until she was rescued from her life of toil by the generosity of Marianne."

"With-a-final-_e_," Billy supplemented. His eyes were full of mischief, for Theodora's tone matched the pomp of her words.

"Then they live in this beautiful house," Theodora went on, sternly regardless of his flippancy; "with an old housekeeper, and they have beautiful times, parties and everything. One stormy night in summer, when they are sitting by the fire, watching the blaze and seeing pictures in it, the bell rings and a man in livery comes in to tell them that there has been a runaway accident and a man hurt. That's Alessandro, and I mean to get all this part out of papa's books."

"Well?"

"Well, he's there for weeks, and the housekeeper takes care of him and the girls don't see him; they just make him broth and things, and send them up to his room. One day, when he is pale and interesting, he leaves his room and sees Marianne and falls in love with her; but she never knows it. He is poor and too honorable to tell her his love, so he just wastes away, and she never guesses. It's all terribly sad."

"Well, yes, I should say so," Billy observed. "Are the others as forlorn?"

"No. Gerald is a student, and Marianne's cousin, who lives next door.

He's jolly, with yellow hair, and means to be a doctor. He loves Violet, even if she is poor. He has a friend, Eugene, that isn't well,--not hectic a bit, but has trouble with his eyes or something, so he can't work, and comes to spend the summer there, and falls in love with Marianne. They all have great times, and poor Alessandro, in bed upstairs, can hear all their fun, when they sit on the piazza in the moonlight, and he buries his head in the pillows and sobs. One night, just in fun, Marianne makes her will and leaves all she has to Violet.

Then Marianne and Eugene get engaged. Then Marianne dies of a fever, and they find the will and accuse Violet of killing her, and Eugene is so sorrowful that he goes into a convent."

"I thought men usually took to a monastery."

"What's the difference? Well, they have a trial, and Gerald stops being a doctor and studies law and makes a brilliant plea and saves her.

Then, right in the court-room before them all, he presses her hand to his lips and cries, 'Mine! Mine forever!' and the whole room full of people thunders applause."

Theodora paused. Her cheeks were glowing with excitement. Billy had turned away his head and his arm half shielded his face.