ready to fight. It never
does any good."

"But I wasn't going to sit still and let him bully that little baby,"
Allyn argued.

"No; but you needn't have tried to bully him in your turn," his sister
answered promptly, though in her heart of hearts she was in perfect
sympathy with her young brother. She gloried in his fearlessness, even
while she told herself that he must submit to discipline. "It wasn't your
place to tell Mr. Mitchell what he ought to do. He is an older man, and
he may have reasons that you don't know. He is not accountable to you,
Allyn, and his judgment may be better than yours. Moreover, you owe him
obedience, and the McAlisters always pay their debts."

"Have I got to eat humble pie and go back, Teddy?"

"You've got to eat humble pie," she said, as a laughing note crept into
her voice when she thought of Jamie Lyman, insignificant and warty cause
of such a storm. "About your going back, that is for papa to say, dear. I
think you ought to do it."

"I hate that school!" he muttered restively.

"Why?"

"Don't like the fellows."

"What is the matter with them?"

"Foolish."

"Try the girls, then."

"They're worse."

"Hm." Theodora mused aloud. "Given ten boys: if nine of them all like
each other, and the tenth doesn't like any of them, where does the
trouble lie? Allyn you are getting cranky."

"Maybe so; but I can't help it."

"Yes, you can, too. Do you know, you need a chum."

A sudden flash of fun came into Allyn's eyes.

"What's the matter with you, Ted?"

"Me? I'm too old. Besides, I am producing literature."

"And I interrupted," he said penitently, for he took much satisfaction in
his sister's work.

"No; at least, not much. I want you to tell me things, Allyn. We have
always been chums, and I should be a good deal jealous of any one else."

"But I don't want any one else. What's the use?"

"Yes, you want somebody to antic with, while I am busy, just as I have
Billy, somebody of your own age, only you must always like me best. Now
come over to see if papa is in his office and talk things over with him.
He can advise you a good deal better than I can, Allyn; but, this time, I
think I know about what he will say." And she did.

It took more than an hour for Dr. McAlister to explain to his young son
the difference between independence and anarchy. There was a fearlessness
in the boy's point of view that roused his father's admiration, and more
than once he was forced to t