"Do you often do that kind of thing, Miss Teddy?"
Theodora, with her hands full of books, was passing through the lower
hall. At the sudden question, she glanced up to see Archie Holden
leaning on the banisters and looking down at her.
"What thing?" she asked.
"Oh, adopting stray babies. You gave me a fine fright, last night."
Theodora blushed. Then, as she met his merry eyes, she burst out
laughing.
"Wasn't it awful? I put the child to bed and promised her some supper,
and then I forgot her."
"And I sat on her," Archie supplemented. "I don't know which of us was
the more astonished, she or I. What were you going to do with her?"
"Why, you see," Theodora dropped her books on the seat by the staircase
and settled herself beside them; "you see, it was my first experience
with slumming."
"With what?"
"Don't you know? Or don't you have any slums in Montana? Everybody does
it here, and it's beautiful."
"What's the usual _modus operandi_?"
"The what? Talk English, please."
"How do you go at it?" Archie sat down on the top step, to talk at his
ease.
"Oh, they go to see poor people, and take them food and soap and
madonnas and fumigate them."
"The madonnas?"
"No, the people. It does them ever so much good. Mrs. Farrington,
Billy's mother, had a friend here that did it, and she told us all about
it."
"I begin to comprehend," Archie said gravely, as he looked down at the
animated face below him. "And does it belong to the plan to bring them
home and hide them in the guests' beds?"
"How was I to know you were here?" Theodora demanded. "Didn't you take
us all by surprise?"
"I meant to surprise Bess, and I rather flatter myself I succeeded. I
say, Miss Teddy, what relation are we, anyhow?"
"Hm-m." Theodora pondered on the matter. "Cousins? No; I suppose you're
my uncle. Uncle Archie. How respectful that sounds!"
Archie made a grimace of disgust.
"It suggests carpet slippers and an ivory-headed cane and a bandanna. I
don't believe I care to be related at all, if that's the way you're
going to work it."
Theodora laughed wickedly. She was keen enough to see that the young man
was nettled by the implied addition to his years, and she was too much
of a tease to allow her opportunity to slip by, unheeded. She gave him a
mocking bow.
"I'm sorry you don't care to claim us, Uncle Archie," she said, as she
rose. "Still, you can't expect us to call mamma's only brother Mr.
Holden."
"Call me Archie, then."
"How disrespectful! No, Uncle Archie is quite nice and proper."
"I won't answer. Where are you going?"
"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 amusements 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 pass 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!"
But Hope's remonstrance came too late, for Archie had already sat up.
Hubert helped him to take off his skates, and the little party started
for home. It was the same walk they had taken many times before; but
there was a difference now. Instead of going up the hill in a merry
group, with Archie pushing the chair and Theodora prancing along by his
side, Billy and the twins took the lead, and Archie and Hope, in the
shadow of the trees, followed along slowly, very slowly.