"Mercy, no! There are five of us."

"How jolly it must be! I'm the only one." The boy's tone was a bit wishful. "Are they all like you?"

"I hope not." Theodora's laugh rang out a second time, hearty and infectious. "There are two good ones, and two bad ones, and a baby."

"Which are you?" the boy asked mischievously.

"What a question! I'm bad, of course, that is, in comparison with Hope.

She's the oldest, and we get worse as we go down the line. I shudder to think what the baby may develop into."

The boy nestled down contentedly among his cushions and watched her with merry eyes.

"Go on and tell about them," he urged. "It's such fun to hear about a large family."

Theodora's quick eye saw that one of the cushions was slipping to one side. She replaced it with a deftness of touch natural to her, yet seemingly incongruous with her harum-scarum ways. Then she settled herself with her back against a tree, facing her new friend.

"Hope is past seventeen and an angel," she said; "one of the good, quiet kind with yellow hair and not any temper. She's had all the care of us, since my mother died. Then there's Hubert, my twin brother. He's my boy, and a splendid one. You'll like Hu. Phebe is ten, and a terror. n.o.body ever knows what she'll do or say next. We call her Babe, but Allyn is the real baby. He's cunning and funny, except when Babe teases him, and then he rages like a little monster. That's all there are of us."

"And you live just over the fence?"

"Yes, we've lived there always, grown up with the place. People used to call it McAlister's Folly; but they're more respectful now."

"McAlister?"

"Yes. I'm Dr. McAlister's daughter. Didn't you know it?"

"How should I? Remember, you came down out of a tree."

They both laughed.

"That's just like me," Theodora returned. "I never do the thing I ought.

Hu was coming over here in a few days; but Hope said I must wait to see what papa said."

"What for?"

"Because you're a boy. She said girls don't go to see boys. I told her I would wait, and here I am. I couldn't help it; but Hope will be horrified. She never went to see a boy in her life; but then, she's used to being horrified at me." Theodora appeared to be arguing out the situation, much to her own frank amus.e.m.e.nt.

"But don't you see it's different in this case?" the boy suggested. "I'm only about half a boy, just now. Besides, Miss Teddy, if you'll only come over again, I promise to make up for it, as soon as I'm able to go to see you."

Theodora's face brightened.

"Do you honestly want me to come again?"

"Of course. Else I shouldn't ask you. Come over the fence again. I shall be up here, 'most every pleasant morning, and everybody else is busy, fixing up the house. Come to-morrow," he urged.

"I will, if I can. Sometimes I'm busy."

"By the way," the boy added abruptly; "maybe I ought to tell you my name. Probably you know it, though."

"No." Theodora looked up expectantly. She had an appet.i.te for high-sounding names, and she had decided that Valentine Mortimer would just suit the present instance.

"Well, I'm Will Farrington; but everybody calls me Billy."

"Oh." Then Theodora unexpectedly began to laugh. "We ought to be good friends," she said; "for our names are about equally imposing. Billy and Teddy! Could anything be more prosaic? Good-by," she added, as she rose.

"Truly, I must go home now."

Billy held out his hand. It looked rather white and thin, as Theodora's brown, strong fingers closed over it.

"Good-by," he said reluctantly. "Do come again whenever you can.

Remember there are five of you and only one of me, and be as neighborly as you can."

Theodora mounted the fence. At the top, she paused and looked back.

"I will come," she said. "I'll get round Hope in some way or other.

Good-by till to-morrow." She nodded brightly, and jumped down out of sight, on the other side of the fence.

CHAPTER THREE

It was the first of September, and the sunshine lay yellow on the fields. Phebe McAlister and her chief friend and crony, Isabel St. John, sat side by side on a rough board fence, not far from the McAlister grounds, feasting upon turnips. The turnips were unripe and raw, and nothing but an innate spirit of perversity could have induced the girls to eat them. Moreover, each had an abundant supply of exactly similar vegetables in her own home garden, yet they had wandered away, to prey upon the turnip patch of Mr. Elnathan Rogers.

"Good, aren't they?" Phebe asked, as the corky, hard root cracked under her jaws.

"Fine." Isabel rolled her morsel under her tongue; then, when Phebe's attention was distracted, she furtively threw it down back of the fence.

"I believe I like 'em better this way than I do cooked." This addition was strictly true, for Isabel never touched turnips at home.

"I want another." Phebe jumped down and helped herself to two more turnips, carefully choosing the largest and best, and ruthlessly sacrificing a half-dozen more in the process. "Here, Isabel, take your pick."

Isabel held out her hand, hesitated, then, with a radiant smile of generosity, ostentatiously helped herself to the smaller. But Phebe held firmly to its bunch of green leaves.

"No, take the other, Isabel," she urged.

"I'd rather leave it for you."

"But I want you to have it."

"And I want you to take it."

"I've got ever so many more at home."

"So've I."

Reluctantly Phebe yielded her hold, and Isabel took the smaller one and rubbed the earth away, before biting it.

"It's not fair for me to take it, Phebe," she observed; "when you were the one to get it."