he can't get
on with any of the boys. He lords it over them, and then resents it and
sulks, if they rebel. Where does he get it, Ted? We weren't like that."

"It is too bad," she said slowly; "but I'll see what I can do with him."

"He has needed you, Teddy; that is a fact. Even the mother can't get on
with him as you do. You're going to stay at home now for a while;
aren't you?"

"Yes; we are going to have a perfect honeymoon of quiet. We have wandered
enough, and we don't mean to budge again for the next ten years. I am
going to write, all day long; and, when twilight falls, Billy and I will
draw our elbow chairs to the fire, and sit and gossip and nod over the
andirons till bedtime. We haven't had an hour to ourselves for five
months, and now we must make up for lost time."

Hubert laughed.

"You are as bad as ever. When do I come in?"

"On Sundays. I expect a McAlister dinner party, every Sunday night.
Otherwise, four times a day. We have three elbow chairs, you know, and
the hearth is a broad one."

"You haven't asked after Phebe," Hubert said, after a pause.

"What was the use? Billy had a letter from his mother, the day we left
Helena, and I knew you would have had nothing later."

"But we have."

"What?"

"She sailed for home, to-day, on the _Kaiserina_."

"Hubert!"

"Theodora?"

"What do you mean?"

"Just that and no more."

"How did you hear?"

"A cable, to-day."

"But Mrs. Farrington said she was going to Italy."

"Perhaps she is."

"Not if she is coming home."

"She isn't."

Theodora looked mystified, as much at the ambiguity of the pronouns as at
the fact itself.

"Babe is coming home alone," Hubert added.

"Is she ill?"

"Quite well, she says."

"Then what in the world is she coming for?" Theodora's tone expressed
both indignation and incredulity.

"It passes my comprehension. What do you think, Billy?"

Mr. Farrington took off his hat and pushed back his red-gold hair. It was
a trick he had, when he was worried or annoyed.

"I can't imagine," he said anxiously. "Mother has enjoyed Babe and she
has written often of Babe's being happy over there. It seemed a pleasant
thing for them both; and I am sorry to have the arrangement broken up.
What has Babe written to you?"

"Constant ecstasies. She has been perfectly happy, and has chanted the
praise of your mother for paragraphs at a time. I think there can't have
been any trouble, or Babe would have told us. She isn't