"Nothing more than usual," Theodora said, laughing. "Goodness me, Babe!

What's that?"

"What's what?" Phebe cast an apprehensive glance behind her.

"In your hand?"

"That? Oh, that's my tibia. I was studying where it articulates into the fibula. It's ever so nice. Just see the cunning little grooves."

"Booh!" Theodora laughed, even in her disgust. "I am not weak-minded, Babe, but those things do not appeal to me."

"Every one to his taste," Phebe said loftily. "I like bones better than Browning, myself. Isabel St. John thinks she will be a nurse."

"Then you can hunt in pairs," Theodora commented irreverently. "I pity the patient. Do you really like this sort of thing, Babe?"

Phebe rested her cheek meditatively against the upper end of her tibia.

"Yes, of course; or else I shouldn't be doing it. Bones, that is, dead ones, are nice and neat; and I don't think I should mind setting live ones. Of course it isn't going to be all bones; but I suppose even literature has its disagreeable sides."

"Yes," Theodora a.s.sented, with a pa.s.sing memory of the pillow reposing on the lawn outside her window. "After all, Babe, I think you lack the real artist's devotion to your work. Even mumps ought to be beautiful in your eyes and meningitis a delight to your soul. The day will come that you will give up medicine and take a course in plain cooking, now mark my words."

"Thanks; but I prefer tibias to tomatoes," Phebe responded. "When I am the great Dr. McAlister, you will change your tune."

"There will never be but one great Dr. McAlister," Theodora answered loyally. "No, mother, I must not stay to lunch, not even if Babe would grill her tibia for me. Billy gets very grumpy, if I leave him alone at his meals. Good-bye, Babe. Don't let anything happen to your grooves."

She went away with a laugh on her lips; but the laugh vanished, as she went up to her writing-room once more and paused for a moment before her closed desk. Then her face cleared, as she hurriedly put herself into Billy's favorite gown and ran down the stairs to meet him in the hall.

The woes of book-making and the worries of her family never clouded Theodora's welcome to her husband.

CHAPTER FIVE

"Teddy, did you ever hear me say anything about Gertrude Keith?"

"Why--yes. Wasn't she the cousin who married Harry Everard?"

"Your memory does you credit." Mr. Farrington's eyes belied his bantering tone.

"What about her?"

"Nothing about her. She died, the year before we were married, and left Harry with this one daughter. He has had a housekeeper since then; but the housekeeper took unto herself a husband, a third one, a month ago.

Now Harry has been having pneumonia and is ordered to southern France for a while, and he wants to know if the child can come to us."

"What?" Theodora's tone was charged with consternation.

"Isn't it awful? And yet I am sorry for him. We're the nearest relatives the child has except Joe Everard, and naturally she can't be left to the mercies of a bachelor uncle. What shall we do, Ted?"

For one short instant, Theodora stared into the fire. Then she looked up into her husband's blue eyes.

"Take her, of course," she said briskly.

Mr. Farrington had never outgrown certain of his lover-like habits. Now he stretched his hand out to hers for a minute.

"You're a comfort, Ted," he said. "I hated to refuse Harry, for his letter was a blue one. Will she be horribly in the way?"

"No; I sha'n't let her," Theodora answered bluntly. "Don't worry, Billy; we shall get on, I know. Have you ever seen her?"

"Once, when she was in the knitted-sock stage of development. She wasn't at all pretty then."

"How old is she now?"

"Hear what her father saith." And Mr. Farrington took a letter from his breast pocket. Its creases showed signs of the frequent readings it had received that day. As he said, he had disliked to refuse the request of his old friend; but he disliked still more to burden his wife with this new care which would be such an interruption to her work. Moreover, the girl would be in his own way.

"Cicely is just sixteen now," he read, "a bright, sunny-tempered child, and, I hope, not too badly spoiled. You will find her perfectly independent and able to shift for herself; all I want is to have her under proper chaperonage. I should take her with me; but the doctor has forbidden my having the care, and I hate to put the child into a boarding-school."

Theodora laughed, as her husband paused for breath.

"The paternal view of the case, Billy. Cicely is a nice, demure little name; but I suspect that the young woman doesn't quite live up to it.

Still, I believe I would rather have an independent damsel than a shrinking one. She will be more in my line."

"But do you think you ought to try it, Teddy?" her husband remonstrated.

"Won't it be too hard for you? I can just as well tell Harry to put her into a school."

For one more instant, Mrs. Farrington wavered. Then she saw the frown between her husband's brows, a frown of anxiety, not of discontent.

"No; it will be good for us, Billy. We are getting too staid, and we need some child-life in the house. We can try the experiment, anyway; and it will be easy enough to pack her off to school, after we have grown tired of her. Will you write, to-night?"

"If you are sure you think best."

"I do; and perhaps I'd better put a note into your letter. It may make Harry feel easier about leaving the child with strangers. He will find it hard enough, anyway."

She crossed the room to her desk, to write the letter which was to bring new courage to the anxious, exiled invalid. Suddenly she turned around, with her pen in mid air.

"Billy, the hand of fate is in this. The girl may be just what Allyn needs."

"Ye--es; only it is within the limits of possibility that they may fight."

"Then they will have to make up again, living in such close quarters as this. Besides, that kind of fighting isn't altogether unhealthful. I believe the whole matter is foreordained for Allyn's good."

"It is an optimistic view of the case that wouldn't have occurred to me, Ted. Still, we'll hope for the best."

Valiantly she took his advice and hoped for the best, while she busied herself about the details of receiving her new charge. March was already some days old, and it had been decided that Cicely should arrive on the twentieth, so the time was short. In the midst of her domestic duties, Theodora found time for some hours of writing, each day, for she had a well-founded fear lest the new arrival might be of little help to the cause of light literature. In the intervals, she and Billy discussed the invasion of their hearthstone from every possible point of view; but as a rule the ridiculous side of the situation prevailed and they had moments of wild hilarity over the coming demands on their dignity.

"Uncle William!" Theodora observed, one day. "It suggests a scarlet bandanna and an ivory-headed cane. She will probably embroider you some purple slippers next Christmas too."

"No matter, so long as she doesn't undertake to choose my neckties. Never mind, Ted; the uncertainty will soon be over. She comes, to-morrow."