e, and that struck her as a good scheme.
She's had a long session with your father and mother, and it's all
settled, unless you veto it."

"I'll be likely to. Now we shall have a chance to work on our play."

"And to develop our pictures," added Billy, who just now was suffering
from an attack of the photographic mania.

"Yes, dozens of things. We can do so much in six weeks."

"The worst of it is," Billy remarked pensively; "I'm sure to have such a
fine time of it at your house that I can't seem to get up much regret
over my mother's departure."

"You'll be homesick enough," Theodora predicted. "Wait a week and see."

Two days later, Mrs. Farrington took the morning train for New York,
where she was to meet her brother and go with him to the Adirondacks.
Billy stood on the steps to wave her a farewell; then he slowly crossed
the lawn towards the gate which had been cut through the fence under
"Teddy's tree." For the next week or two, he and Theodora were busy from
morning till night, revelling in the thousand and one interests for
which the days had been all too short, when they were obliged to take
their meals and to sleep in places six hundred feet apart.

One golden September day, Billy and Theodora were out under the old
apple-tree, hard at work on the play which they had long been planning
to write. It was to be given on the following Christmas; and the parts,
written to order, included the three older McAlisters, Billy, and Archie
who had promised to come East in time for the holidays. There was need
for strict division of labor. Billy, more familiar with theatres, was
able to supply the stage craft and the plot, while Theodora padded the
skeleton and covered the dry bones of his outline with sonorous speeches
over which she was forced to pause, now and then, to smack her lips.

"'Die, villain, die; and drink the cup of retribution for all your
sins!'" she read. "How does that go, Billy?"

"All right. Do I say that, or does Hu?"

"Hu. Poor Uncle Archie! Then he tumbles over with a whack and dies in
Hope's arms."

"What kills him? You never do half kill people, Ted. You take too much
for granted."

"Conscience. No; Hu, that is, Sir James, shoots him."

"I remember now. I'd forgotten. I hope Hu's a safe shot."

"He couldn't hit a church, if he tried." Theodora giggled. "What's the
matter, Hope?" For she saw Hope coming rapidly across the lawn towards
them.

"Bad news, dear." Hope's eyes were full