ed to Fred, in the lower hall.

"It's just awful," she said. "Tell me, Fred, dear, how it all happened."

"Uncle Aaron makes too much of it, Mother!" exclaimed Fred, who had had
all he could do to keep still during his uncle's tirade. "Of course, it
might have been a bad accident. But you know just as well as I do that
Teddy wouldn't have done it for all the world, if he had thought anybody
would get hurt. The boys were teasing him about hitting the ball
straight, and, as luck would have it, Jed's team came along just that
minute. It just struck Teddy that here was something to aim at, and he
let fly. Of course, there was only one chance out of ten of hitting the
horse at all, and, even if it had hit him, it might have only made him
jump, and that would have been the end of it. But everything went wrong,
and the team ran away. Nobody felt worse about it than Teddy. If you'd
seen how white he looked----"

"Poor boy!" murmured Mrs. Rushton softly. Then, recollecting herself,
she said a little confusedly: "Poor Uncle Aaron, I mean. It must have
been a terrible shock to him. Think what a blow it would have been to
all of us, if he had been killed!"

"Sure, it would!" assented Fred, though his voice lacked conviction.
"But he wasn't, and there's no use of his being so grouchy over it. He
ought to be so glad to be alive that he'd be willing to let up on Teddy.
I suppose that all the time he's here now he'll keep going on like a
human phonograph."

"You mustn't speak about your uncle that way, Fred," said his mother
reprovingly. "He's had a great deal to try his temper, and Teddy is very
much to blame. He must be punished. Yes, he certainly must be punished."

"There's one thing, too, Mother," went on Fred, determined to put his
brother in the best light possible, "Ted might have lied out of it, but
he didn't. Uncle Aaron put the question to the boys straight, or rather
he was just going to do it, when Teddy spoke up and owned that he was
the one who hit the ball."

"Bless his heart," cried Mrs. Rushton delightedly, pouncing on this bit
of ammunition to use in Teddy's behalf when the time came.

Fred went to his room to wash and brush up, and a few minutes later the
family, with the unexpected guest, were gathered about the table, spread
with the good things that Martha had heaped upon it.

Last of all, came Teddy. Usually, he was among the first. But a certain
delicacy, new to him, seemed to whisper to him to-night t