nly child," Mrs. Farrington said at last. "You have so
many now, Bess, be generous with them, and let Will have as much good of
them as he can. Your Teddy has been very kind to him already."

"Teddy?"

"Yes, Theodora as she calls herself. She has been making neighborly
calls by way of the fence, and she and Will are excellent friends
already. What an unusual girl she is!"

There came a little look of perplexity in Mrs. McAlister's eyes.

"Yes; and yet I find her the hardest one of them all to get at. The fact
is, Jessie, I have two or three problems to deal with, and Theodora is
not the least of them. Hope and Hubert are conventional enough, and
Phebe is openly fractious; but Theodora is more complex. She's the most
interesting one to me, but she is decidedly elusive."

"I wish she were mine," Mrs. Farrington said enviously. "I have so
longed for a daughter, and she would be so good for Will. He doesn't
know anybody here, and he is so handicapped that he can't get acquainted
easily. I know he gets horribly tired of me. Women aren't good for boys,
either; and now that he is so pitifully helpless, I have to watch
myself all the time not to coddle him to death. I hate a prig; you know
I always did, Bess, and I am in terror of turning my boy into one. I
shall borrow your Teddy, as often as I can, for she is the healthiest
companion that he can have."

Billy, meanwhile, had promptly been made to feel at home among the young
people. With Theodora to act as mistress of ceremonies and introduce
him, it had been impossible for him to feel himself long a stranger.
Patrick had retired to a distant seat, and the McAlisters settled
themselves in a group around the chair, Theodora close at his side with
her hand resting on the wheel, as if to mark her proprietorship. She was
quick to see that both Hope and Hubert approved of Billy, and she felt a
certain pride in him, as being her discovery. Even Hubert's prejudice
against the crippled back and the wheeled chair appeared to have
vanished at the sight of the alert face and the sound of the gay laugh.
Billy was in one of his most jovial moods, and Theodora knew well enough
that at such times he was wellnigh irresistible.

Phebe, awed to silence by the chair and the cushions, eyed the guest in
meditative curiosity; but Allyn was not so easily satisfied. From his
seat in Hope's lap, he lifted up his piping little voice.

"What for you ride in a baby caej?"

No one heeded him, a