CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

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Two years had passed away, and The Savins lay basking in the heat of an August noon. Here and there, a broad calladium leaf swayed majestically to and fro in a passing breeze, and the locusts sang shrilly in the trees overhead. Upstairs in her own room, Theodora rocked lazily, humming to herself while she darned her stockings.

"Prosaic work!" she said aloud, half whimsically. "The sure forerunner of a prosaic spinsterhood! My plans don't seem to materialize rapidly, and I foresee that I shall go on darning stockings till the end of my days. Bah! how I hate it!" She rolled up her stockings into a ball. "Two years ago, and I was saying good-by to Billy in New York, and we were making great plans for what we were to accomplish. Dear old Billy! I hope he's quite strong by this time. It's almost time for another letter from him, seems to me."

She tossed the ball to the table beside her, and, clasping her hands above her rumpled hair, fell to dreaming. Phebe interrupted her.

"A letter for you, Teddy!" she proclaimed, opening the door and casting the envelope across the room towards her sister.

"From Billy?"

"How should I know? I don't read your letters."

It was the same Phebe, older and taller, but otherwise unchanged. Now her tone was slightly toploftical.

"I didn't suppose you did," Theodora answered, while she rose to pick up the letter. "I can't say you are over-ceremonious with it, Babe."

"Don't care." And Phebe vanished as abruptly as she had come.

The letter was not from Billy. The handwriting was strange; and Theodora turned it over and over nervously, before she ventured to open it. Then of a sudden the color came into her cheeks, and her eyes flashed. Seizing the letter, she opened the door and ran down the stairs.

"Hope! Hu! Somebody!" she called, with a glad, exultant note in her voice.

She called again. Then she heard Phebe's voice from the lawn.

"I am here. What do you want?"

"Where is everybody?" Theodora asked, stepping out on the piazza.

"I'm here." Phebe's accent suggested that her feelings were hurt at the question.

"Yes; but papa and mamma?"

"Driving."

"And Hope?"

"Mooning round with Archie somewhere."

"Where's Hu?"

"Gone for a ride."

"Then you'll be the first to hear my great news."

"Needn't tell me, unless you want. I don't care to be taken Jack-at-a-pinch."

"I do want to tell you, Babe. I only thought I would wait till the others were here; but I don't believe I can wait."

"What is it?" Phebe asked, her curiosity overcoming her momentary pique as she looked at Theodora's radiant face.

"It's only that I've written a book and sent it to a publisher, and he says it's good enough to publish."

"Really? Really and truly?" Phebe's face expressed her incredulity. "Will he pay you a lot for it?"

"Something,—not a lot, though," Theodora answered, too much accustomed to Phebe's lack of sympathy to be hurt by her words. "But that's not the main thing, Babe. Think of the honor of it!"

"Hm!" Phebe said slowly. "It's the money I'd care for, Teddy. Ever so many people have written books before, and some of them younger than you."

Great was the rejoicing of the family, that day, when Theodora met them at the dinner-table with her news. In the clamor of question and congratulation, no word could be distinguished at first. Then Dr. McAlister's voice, clear and quiet, hushed the others.

"Teddy, dear," he said tenderly; "I couldn't love you more than I do; but this makes your old father very proud of you. I wish your own mother could have known it."

And Mrs. McAlister added softly,—

"Perhaps she does, Jack."

The clamor broke out again.

"When did you—?"

"How did you ever—?"

"Why didn't you tell us that—?"

"How long—?"

"What will Billy Farrington say?" Hope asked at length.

"He'll say, 'Didn't I always tell you so?'" Hubert answered, smiling across the table at his twin sister.

Afterwards they lingered on the piazza, talking and laughing, begging to see the manuscript, teasing Theodora about her secretiveness, and congratulating her again and again. It was an attractive group, Theodora in the midst, a tall, handsome girl in the full ripeness of her maidenly beauty, her arm linked in that of her twin brother, while pretty Hope stood facing them, with Archie at her side.

Allyn came up to them as they stood there.

"Take these, Teddy," he said, holding out his hand.

"What are they, Allyn?" she asked, loosing Hubert's arm as she bent down over the child.

"Clovers, four-leafed ones. They will bring you luck," he answered, with childish superstition.

"How many you find, Allyn! I never see any," she said, taking the handful of green leaves.

"Put them in your belt, and the first man you shake hands with, you'll marry," Phebe suggested pertly.

"Not I. I'm doomed to old-maidhood," she said, laughing.

"Give them to Hope, then," Phebe said, careless of Hope's blushes.

"Never. They are mine. You gave them to me, didn't you, Allyn?"

"Yes," the child said gravely. "You'd better keep them and put them in your belt. Hope doesn't need them as much as you do."

In the midst of the laugh that followed, Theodora went away to her room to write the momentous letter which should accept the publisher's offer. It cost her some pains to write it, to attain the proper degree of indifference, equally removed from coldness and from childish eagerness. The clock beside her told that an hour had passed over her task, and a little heap of torn papers lay on the desk before her when the maid came to call her.

"There's some one in the parlor to see you, Miss Theodora."

"Who?"

"He didn't tell me his name."

"Bother take him!" Theodora remarked to herself. Then she added aloud, "Well, I'll be right down."

It was characteristic of Theodora that she delayed to give no glance at the mirror. Just as she was, with her ruffled hair and in her simple pink morning gown, she ran down the stairway and entered the cool, dark parlor. As she crossed the threshold, the guest rose to greet her,—a guest with a tall, athletic figure, a sunburned face, keen blue eyes, and a mass of reddish golden hair.

"Billy!"

"Ted!"

"Where did you come from?"

"'The Ankworks package.'"

"But really?"

"I landed, yesterday afternoon. I was bound to give you a surprise, and I think I've made it out. Glad to see me?"

"You dear old boy! Have you any doubts about it? How well you're looking, and how—how stunning!"

"Ditto, ma'am. The years have agreed with you, I suspect."

"Yes. And you? You've told so little about yourself. You do write horrid letters, Billy."

"Your old frankness, I observe," he said mischievously.

"I know it; but when I am longing to hear if you're well and all about you, you write reams of student gossip. I forgive you, though, now I see you, for you look better than I ever supposed you could."

"Not much like the flabby chunk of flesh that used to call itself Billy Farrington?" he asked complacently.

"Not a bit, you giant; but you're the same old Billy. Is it polite to say you've grown? Walk off, and let me look at you."

Turning, he made a few quick strides up and down the room, laughing, as he did so, at the perfect satisfaction written on her face. Then he came back and took her hand once more.

"Will it pass, Teddy?" he asked, looking down at the tall girl beside him.

"Yes, in every way. You're sure you are as strong as ever?"

"Sound as a nut. And, by Jove, Ted, after two years of Dutch Gretchens, it is good to see you again."

Something in the expression of the blue eyes above her made her own eyes droop. Something in the expression of the blue eyes above her made her own eyes droop.

Something in the expression of the blue eyes above her made her own eyes droop. Then suddenly she flushed and drew away her hand, which, all this time, had been lying in his two strong brown palms, for, as she looked down, her glance had chanced to fall upon the bunch of withered leaves which still clung in her belt.

THE END


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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