urn away to hide his amusement at Allyn's
disclaimers of anything like personal affection for Jamie.

"Jamie!" he said, in one final outburst. "Jamie! Fifteen years old, and
calls himself Jamie! If he'd only brace up and be Jim, there'd be some
sort of hope for him."

The result of the discussion was the doctor's sending Allyn back to
apologize and take his old place in the school once more, while he sat
himself down to write a plain note to the master. Theodora, meanwhile,
went in search of Mrs. McAlister. She found her in her own room, humming
contentedly to herself over the family mending. Forgetful of her years
and her inches, Theodora cast herself down on the floor at her
stepmother's feet.

"Whatever made you do it?" she asked without preface.

"Do what?"

"Marry papa."

"Because--well, because he asked me."

"You never would have done it, if you had seen us first," Theodora
responded half whimsically, half discontentedly. "Hope and Hubert are all
right; but the rest of us are enough to turn your hair white. I was bad
enough; and now Phebe is forsaking the world and taking to skeletons, and
Allyn is at war with the whole human race, including Mr. Mitchell. Well,
Phebe, what now?"

"I heard my name and thought I'd come and take a hand in the discussion,"
Phebe announced, as she strolled into the room. "Have I done anything you
don't like? If I have, just mention it."

"Nothing more than usual," Theodora said, laughing. "Goodness me, Babe!
What's that?"

"What's what?" Phebe cast an apprehensive glance behind her.

"In your hand?"

"That? Oh, that's my tibia. I was studying where it articulates into the
fibula. It's ever so nice. Just see the cunning little grooves."

"Booh!" Theodora laughed, even in her disgust. "I am not weak-minded,
Babe, but those things do not appeal to me."

"Every one to his taste," Phebe said loftily. "I like bones better than
Browning, myself. Isabel St. John thinks she will be a nurse."

"Then you can hunt in pairs," Theodora commented irreverently. "I pity
the patient. Do you really like this sort of thing, Babe?"

Phebe rested her cheek meditatively against the upper end of her tibia.

"Yes, of course; or else I shouldn't be doing it. Bones, that is, dead
ones, are nice and neat; and I don't think I should mind setting live
ones. Of course it isn't going to be all bones; but I suppose even
literature has its disagreeable sides."

"Yes," Theodora assented, with a p