"You're a comfort, Ted," he said. "I hated to refuse Harry, for his letter was a blue one. Will she be horribly in the way?"
"No; I sha'n't let her," Theodora answered bluntly. "Don't worry, Billy; we shall get on, I know. Have you ever seen her?"
"Once, when she was in the knitted-sock stage of development. She wasn't at all pretty then."
"How old is she now?"
"Hear what her father saith." And Mr. Farrington took a letter from his breast pocket. Its creases showed signs of the frequent readings it had received that day. As he said, he had disliked to refuse the request of his old friend; but he disliked still more to burden his wife with this new care which would be such an interruption to her work. Moreover, the girl would be in his own way.
"Cicely is just sixteen now," he read, "a bright, sunny-tempered child, and, I hope, not too badly spoiled. You will find her perfectly independent and able to shift for herself; all I want is to have her under proper chaperonage. I should take her with me; but the doctor has forbidden my having the care, and I hate to put the child into a boarding-school."
Theodora laughed, as her husband paused for breath.
"The paternal view of the case, Billy. Cicely is a nice, demure little name; but I suspect that the young woman doesn't quite live up to it. Still, I believe I would rather have an independent damsel than a shrinking one. She will be more in my line."
"But do you think you ought to try it, Teddy?" her husband remonstrated. "Won't it be too hard for you? I can just as well tell Harry to put her into a school."
For one more instant, Mrs. Farrington wavered. Then she saw the frown between her husband's brows, a frown of anxiety, not of discontent.