"To do my lessons with Billy. We have a tutor." Theodora spoke with a sudden air of complacency.

"What a bother! I wanted you. Do you do them, every day?"

"Yes, every morning, only we're generally at Billy's. What did you want?"

"Nothing much; only I brought on some stuff for Bess and for--my new nephews and nieces, and I thought, if you weren't busy, I'd bring it down."

"How lovely! I'll wait."

"Oh, Ted-dy!" Billy's voice, though distant, was emphatic and distinct.

"Do hurry up!"

She gave a longing glance back at the young man at the top of the stairway.

"I can't wait," she said regretfully. "I don't want to go; but--it's Billy, you see."

Archie liked her loyalty.

"No matter; they can wait till noon. Farewell, my niece, and mind your teacher."

"I will, Uncle Archie."

Two months before this time, soon after Billy had begun to rally from the mysterious strain to his back, Mrs. Farrington had appeared in the doctor's office, one evening.

"As usual, I am asking a favor," she said. "At last, I have succeeded in getting a really good tutor for Billy. The man was instructor in Yale till his health failed, and he is highly recommended to me. Billy is bright and well advanced for his age, so I think he and Hubert must be doing about the same work. It is so lonely for him, do you suppose Hubert, or Theodora, or both of them, would be willing to study with him, to keep him company?"

The matter was settled in family council, that same evening. Though it seemed to Dr. McAlister too fine an opportunity to be lost, he left it entirely to the choice of the children. Theodora accepted the new plan with prompt delight. Hubert hesitated, chose the tutor, chose to stay in school with his boy friends, dreaded to be separated from Theodora, and finally decided to remain in the school. Two months later, Theodora was reading the Anabasis, while Hubert was still toiling over the intricacies of the irregular verb.

The tutor proved to be a good one, and, from the start, it was a close race between Theodora and Billy. He was eighteen months the older; she was in perfect health, and her lithe young body held an equally active mind. Moreover, she was determined not to be outdone by Billy, nor yet be a drag upon him, so she fell to work with a will and accomplished wonders, while Mr. Brown daily rejoiced that his lines had fallen in such pleasant places.

At dinner-time, Archie appeared, laden with his offerings for his adopted family circle.

"I shot this beast, myself, Bess," he said, as he threw a great rug at her feet. "He was an eight-hundred-pound grizzly who liked the smell of our supper. If you feel of his head, you can find the holes where I shot him. Tom Keyes and I tracked him by the blood on the snow, and we finally cornered him. I thought Hubert might like these antlers, and here's some trumpery for the others."

As he spoke, he tossed a handful of little packages about the group, which quickly became clamorous in its joy. Theodora looked up from her great nugget mounted on a slender pin, to discover that Billy too had been included in the frolic, and she shot an approving glance at Archie just as Allyn climbed to the young man's knee.

"Fank you," the child said, with a sounding kiss. "I love you, and I wish you'd come again and bring me nonner engine, Uncle Archie."

Over Allyn's head, Archie made a gesture of defiance at Theodora.

"That's your work, Miss Ted. I owe you one for that."

"This one?" she asked, holding up the pin. "It's beautiful, Uncle Archie, and I am in love with it already."

For the next month a spirit of revelry appeared to fill the McAlister household. It was an ideal New England winter, and plenty of snow and cold weather kept the young people out of doors. The McAlisters taught Archie to skate; he taught them to run on snowshoes; they had merry coasting parties and long sleigh-rides by day. In the evenings, the Farringtons usually joined them for games, chafing-dish suppers, impromptu theatricals, and the thousand and one other amus.e.m.e.nts of a winter evening. Strange to say, the closest intimacy sprang up between the invalid and the energetic young engineer, and Billy, who at first had jealously regretted Archie's coming, found that his own range of sports was broadened by the strength and care of the young man's arm and eye.

They were all down on the ice, one moonlight evening, Archie and the McAlisters taking turns in pushing the skating-chair in which Billy sat, wrapped in furs. Hubert was at the back of the chair, leaning on the bar, while the others stood gathered about, resting from a network of figure eights.

"To-morrow night, the moon will be full," Theodora said, as she rubbed her nose with the back of her mitten. "I do so hope it will be good skating, for it will be about our last chance. Next night, we have to go to that stupid old party, and, the night after, we give our play."

"I'm getting to the end of my nights," Archie said regretfully. "I had a letter from the chief, to-day, and he wants me to report to him, the first."

"So soon as that?" Hope's tone was remonstrant, as she looked at him with startled eyes. "You didn't mean to go so early."

"No; I meant to stay till the fifteenth; but this will take me off, next week."

"Does mamma know?" Theodora asked.

"Not yet. Don't tell her, please, till to-morrow. She always hates to have me start off again, when I've been home."

"No wonder," Theodora said impulsively. "You aren't half so bad as you might be, Uncle Archie."

He bowed low.

"Thanks awfully. But I am freezing. I'll race you two girls to the dead pine and back."

"All right. You be umpire, Billy. What's the prize?"

"A mate to your nugget. Come on."

With a laughing word to Billy, they swept off up the pond, while the ice rang hard under their long, swinging strokes. Archie led; but Hope and Theodora were close behind him when he reached the old pine-tree. As they turned to face the sheet of silver light reflected back from the surface of the ice, Theodora gasped with the beauty of it all, and with the tense physical excitement of the moment. For one instant, she seemed possessed with the glorious madness of living, with the splendor of the night, with the cold, sharp air and the exhilaration of the exercise.

The next moment, as she mustered all her strength to pa.s.s Archie, she saw him stagger and fall. He had skated on a half-buried stick, and the sudden check to his progress had thrown him headlong on the ice.

There was an instantaneous hush, when it seemed to Theodora that all the glory had died out of the universe. When she regained her scattered senses, Hubert had whirled Billy up to the spot, while Hope, quiet and dainty as ever, but a shade paler than usual, sat on the ice with Archie's head resting in her lap and her handkerchief pressed against the cut in his forehead.

"Be quiet, Teddy," she said gently. "Archie isn't dead, dear. I think it has only stunned him a little."

With a gasp of shame, Theodora realized that she had been crying aloud in her excitement, while the blurred scratches on the ice showed that she had been flying about the group in a futile distraction. With a groan of self-disgust, she dropped down on the footboard of Billy's chair.

"I didn't mean to," she said contritely. "How can you always know just what to do, Hope? I wish I didn't act like an ape, whenever I'm frightened. But do you think he's much hurt?"

Archie answered the question by opening his eyes. He looked up at Hope for a minute, first in wonder at his position, then with an expression of infinite content, as he saw her pretty face bent over him and read the anxiety in her eyes. Then his own eyes grew merry, as he glanced at the tearful, dishevelled Theodora.

"I'm not dead yet," he said. "You came near beating me; but you haven't done it yet, my fair niece." He tried to rise as he spoke.

Hope's hand on his forehead grew a shade heavier.

"Wait a little," she said. "You've cut yourself, and I want it to stop bleeding, first. Aren't you comfortable?"

For a second time, Archie looked up into her eyes.

"Perfectly," he answered briefly.

The pause which followed was an expressive one. Hubert broke it.

"Ye-es," he said critically, as he bent over Archie for a moment; "you aren't looking your very prettiest, Archie. When you do get up, I advise you to go in search of a mirror."

"Hu!"