left it
where I sat."

"Sat!" Allyn stared at his sister in amazement. "What did you do? Sit
down to study the landscape?"

But Phebe stalked up the steps and into the house, and Allyn saw her no
more until dinner-time.

Two days later, Allyn burst into the office where Phebe was bending over
a book. In his hand was an unfolded newspaper which he flapped excitedly,
as she looked up.

"There are others, Babe."

"What do you mean?"

"This. Listen! Oh, where is the thing? Here it is, in the Bannock
correspondence of the _Times_. Listen! 'Mr. G. Bartlett, the musician who
is sojourning at Mr. Jas. Sykes's farm, sustained a bad fall from his
bicycle on Bannock Hill, last Tuesday. His injuries are serious,
including a cut on his temple and a compound fracture of the right arm.
Dr. Starr reduced the fracture and reports the patient as doing as well
as--' you see somebody else slipped up on that hill, Babe. You ought to
feel you came out of it pretty well."

Phebe looked up with a frown.

"Go away, Allyn; I'm busy," she said sharply.

Three weeks later, Phebe had occasion to make another trip to see Mrs.
Richardson. This time, she chose the hill road, the one which led past
the Sykes farm. Gifford Barrett was sauntering along by the roadside,
smoking. His arm was in a sling, his hat drawn forward, half concealing
the patch of plaster on his temple. As she passed, Phebe looked him full
in the face, and instinctively his hand went to his cap, though without
any sign of recognition.

"Some girl that's heard the overture," he said to himself. "I don't seem
to remember her, though. She has a good figure and she rides well; but
what a color! She will have apoplexy, some day, if she's not careful."

The next day, Eulaly Sykes's boarder had started for the Maine coast
where three unmusical, but sympathetic maidens were waiting to help him
pass the dreary days of his convalescence.

CHAPTER NINE

Two willow chairs were swaying to and fro in the gathering dusk, and two
voices were blended in a low murmur. Theodora and Billy were exchanging
the confidences born of a long week of separation while business had
called Mr. Farrington to New York.

"How comes on the book, Ted?"

She shook her head.

"It doesn't come."

"Does Cicely's being here disturb you?"

"No, not really; not nearly so much as Melchisedek. In an unguarded
moment, I asked him, one day, to come and help auntie write books. Since
then he rush