the wrong man, he will--" She paused and
meditatively twisted the end of one of her long pigtails.

"Will what?"

"That's what I'm thinking about. It must be something original, not
poison nor drowning. I know; I'll have him turn sleepless, and get
up--No, he'll be a sleep-walker. He must dream that her house is on
fire, and get up to save her, and walk into the barn and be kicked to
death by her pet horse. She'll find him there in the morning, when she
goes to give him sugar." In the triumph of her lurid ending, Theodora
made havoc of her pronouns.

Billy pondered on the situation, clasping his hands under his head and
turning to face his friend.

"Um-m. That's not so bad," he said at length. "It might possibly happen,
even if it isn't likely. I had an uncle that somnambulated, and he used
to hide the sheets in an old carriage in the barn. I suppose he might
just as well have gone into a stall. Well?"

"And the other men would marry the girls. This one, the dead one, would
be dark and sallow, with high cheek-bones and a thin nose. The others
would be more commonplace. I think I'd have them something like Hu and
you."

"Thanks."

"Oh, I don't mean you are too common; but you aren't a bit like my ideal
hero," Theodora said bluntly. "I like the dead one best. I always do in
stories, if he's only hectic enough. I asked papa once what hectic
meant, and you ought to have heard him laugh when I told him the reason
I wanted to know."

"Great shame I'm not hectic!" Billy commented. "What about the girls?"

"One is light, with yellow hair and very much fun in her. She's the one
the dead man likes. The other is tall and still and stately, like a
lily, with soft, dark hair that droops and is caught up with rare old
combs."

"How many?"

"Oh, one at a time, of course, only she has ever so many, all of them of
old silver. Stop interrupting! She sways when she walks."

"Gout or intoxication?"

"Keep still, Billy, or I won't tell." Theodora's tone was impatient.
There were liberties which not even Billy was allowed to take, and this
story, the outcome of her girlish dreams, was a sacred subject to her.
She had pondered over it for months, and now that she felt the time had
come to begin the actual work of writing, she was revealing the secret
to Billy. Mrs. Farrington was spending a long rainy afternoon in her own
room, writing letters, and the two young people had the library to
themselves. For the most part, Billy