"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 p.r.o.nouns 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 pa.s.ses 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.