"Maybe not. I thought you had, though."
Suddenly Cicely understood him.
"There is no sort of sense in your going away, Cis," Billy said to her,
as soon as he heard of her talk with Gifford Barrett. "Your Cousin
Theodora and I both would be delighted to have you stay here for the
present. The fact is, child, we shall miss you awfully, and can't stand
it to have you go. You will stay with us; won't you?"
"I wish I could; but it wouldn't be fair. Papa needs me."
"You can't do any good, Cis. You're better off here."
"To live on you, and leave papa alone to stand things, the best way he
can? That's not my way, Cousin Will."
"But if you can't help him?"
"I can. If I couldn't do anything else, I could make a little corner of
home for him, and he will need it. He needs me. We have been together
always, till just this last year when he had to go away, and now I'm not
going to leave him to shift for himself."
"Do you know what you are undertaking, Cicely?" he asked her gravely.
"I think I do," she answered quite as gravely. "We shall have to go into
a horrid little flat, somewhere in the wrong end of town, and pinch and
scrimp to get along. I hate it, hate the very idea of it, and I wish I
could stay here; but it is all out of the question. If papa ever needed
the good of a daughter, it's now, and I must meet him when he lands. I
must go, Cousin Will, so please don't make it any harder for me than it
is anyway."
And Billy, as he watched her face and heard her words, forbore to urge,
even though he dreaded for Cicely the future of which she spoke so
bravely. The crash had been more disastrous and final than he had been
led to suppose from the earlier reports. Both he and Theodora would
have been only too glad to keep Cicely in their home; but they knew the
girl was right, her place was with her father. Accordingly, they ceased
to oppose; and only did their best to make the rest of her stay with
them as happy as possible and to help her in her plans for her future
home. Together with the McAlisters, they chose their Christmas gifts
for her carefully, wisely, even merrily, for fun had a large share in
Christmas at The Savins; but only Theodora knew that Billy had bought a
small annuity for Cicely, and that the papers were to be given to her,
not in the basket on Christmas eve, but when she was quite alone, on
Christmas morning.
"I've a good deal more than we are likely to use," Billy had said rather
apologetically, one night; "and even if it doesn't support her, it may as
well help along a little. Cicely is a good girl, and I wish there were
more like her."
And Theodora's assent was a hearty one.
"Phebe, how long is Mr. Barrett going to stay up here?" Theodora asked, a
day or two before Christmas.
"I don't know."
"I thought he was going, to-morrow morning."
"Well, is he?"
"Probably not, inasmuch as I heard him ask you to go to drive with him,
in the afternoon"
"Well, what difference does it make? He's free to stay at the hotel as
long as he likes; isn't he?"
"Yes, if he doesn't starve in the meantime. But it seems to me it
would be well to ask him here to Christmas dinner, if he is going to
be in town."
"I wouldn't."
"Why not?" Theodora asked, in some surprise.
"Christmas is no day to ask strangers here."
"But Mr. Barrett isn't a stranger. Besides, he has been so good to Cicely
that I think we owe him a little hospitality."
"You must do as you like, then," Phebe said curtly, and she marched away
out of the room, leaving Theodora to knit her brows m anxious perplexity.
However, the next afternoon, the snow was falling heavily, and Phebe's
drive was out of the question. At the appointed hour, she glanced out of
the window to see Gifford Barrett wading up the path to the front door,
and she vanished to her own room.
"Come in," she said, in answer to her mother's knock.
"Mr. Barrett is here, Phebe."
"Is he?"
"Yes, he has asked for you."
"But I'm busy."
"Never mind, Babe. Please hurry down, for I am too busy to stay with him,
and I don't like to leave him alone."
"Oh, I really don't think he would steal the spoons," Phebe said
languidly, as she rose. "Well, if I must, I suppose I must. I'll be down
before long."
She turned to her closet and took down a dark red gown which had just
come home from the dressmaker. It was the most becoming gown she had ever
owned, and Phebe was quite aware of the fact. She laid it on the bed and
stood looking at it for a minute or two. Then she shut her lips
resolutely, hung it up again, picked a loose thread or two from the plain
blue gown she wore, and marched down the stairs.
Mr. Barrett rose to greet her, as she came stalking into the room. His
manner was boyishly eager, his eyes brimming with mischief, as he took
her hand and then offered her a small round package wrapped in dainty
blue papers.
"Merry Christmas, Miss McAlister! Wasn't it too bad of the snow to spoil
our drive?"
"I like a white Christmas," Phebe said perversely. "What's this?"
"A little offering for the season's greeting," he said, laughing. "It is
really only a case of returning your own to you."
She took the package in her hands, and, as her fingers closed over it,
she began to laugh in her turn.
"Oh, it's my skull," she said. "I'm so glad to have it again. I shall
want it when I go back to Philadelphia."
His face fell.
"I thought you weren't going back."
"Of course I shall go back."
"But if you are homesick?"
"I shall get over it."
"And the clinics?"
"Nobody ever died of a clinic--except the patient," she said grimly.
He stood looking at her steadily, and any one but Phebe would have known
the meaning of his expression; but she was examining the skull intently.
"You are sure you don't want it any longer?" she asked.
"No; I think there are some other things I would rather have," he
returned.
She shook her head.
"It is a good one, Mr. Barrett, small and quite perfect, and it is yours
by right of possession."
"Phebe," he said, as he came a step nearer her; "my ancestors were
Yankees and I inherit all their love of a trade. You take the skull and
give me--" and he took it as he spoke; "your hand, dear."
She drew her hand away sharply and turned to face him. Then the color
fled from her cheeks, only to rush back again and mount to the roots
of her hair.
"Oh, Gifford," she said brokenly; "I'd like to ever so much, only--do
you really think we'd better?"
An hour later, the two young people sat side by side on the sofa, talking
over and over the wonderful thing that had happened to them.
"I must go back to New York, the day after Christmas," Mr. Barrett said;
"but you will write to me often; won't you, Phebe?"
"If I have anything to tell," she answered; "but I never could write
letters, you know."
"You could once."
"How do you know?"
For his only answer, he opened his cardcase and took out a folded scrap
of paper.
"How about this?" he asked, as he handed it to her.
She took it curiously and unfolded it. Then she turned scarlet as she
read the four lines written there.
"Dehr Sir
"THis mOney iis to pey to P ay for you r wheel anD yoour docors bill WE
are sorrry y u fel loff a and We hooppe you will be butTER sooon A
SINCERE FRind"
"I owe you some money," he added, when she had finished reading it. "But
what moved you to send it?"
"My conscience. I supposed you were a poor, struggling musician, and I
was really afraid you would starve to death if I didn't help you out, so
I borrowed Teddy's typewriter and went to work."
"Give it back to me," he commanded; but she was too quick for him, and a
dozen scraps of paper fluttered into the fire.
"It's the end of that old story," she announced briefly.
"And the beginning of our new one," he added, as the door swung open and
Dr. McAlister came into the room.
Christmas day dawned, clear and crisp and bracing, and The Savins was gay
with Christmas wreaths, with holly and mistletoe boughs. The rooms were
in their annual state of disorder, for Christmas gifts and Christmas
jokes were piled on all the tables and chairs. Gifford Barrett had been
included in the revel of the evening before, and now, at the Christmas
dinner, he sat in the place of honor, next Mrs. McAlister. In all its
history, The Savins had never held a merrier party, and Dr. McAlister's
face was quite content as he glanced down one side of the table where
Phebe, radiant but shamefaced, was trying to conceal something of her
rapture under a show of severity, then down the other where Allyn's open
content with life was matched by Cicely's brave courage in facing
whatever the coming year might have in store for her. Then, as he looked
past and beyond them all to his wife, he threw back his handsome,
iron-grey head proudly.
"It is a good Christmas," he said, in the sudden hush which fell upon the
table; "a good Christmas and a merry one. Bess, we'll change the dear old
toast, and say, Here's to our good health, and our family's and may we
all live long--and prosper!"
Theodora was in her usual seat beside her father. Now she leaned forward
and laid her hand on his.
"Selah!" she said devoutly.