"This seems just like the good old times," Theodora added. "It's five years since we were all here together, like this. Doesn't it make you feel as if you had never been away, Hope?"
"Yes, almost. If Allyn weren't quite so grown up and Billy so lively, I should believe we were children again. Ted, do you remember the first night that Archie came here?"
"The night I went slumming and stole the child? I should say I did. Archie didn't take it kindly at all, when he found the infant in his bed."
"That reminds me, papa," Phebe said abruptly; "Isabel and I want to take some fresh-air children, next week."
"Why, Babe, I don't see how you can," Theodora remonstrated.
"I didn't ask you, Teddy. I have thought it all over, and I can't see any objections. I should take all the care of it, and I want to do it."
"But the house is so full, Babe," Mrs. McAlister said. "There isn't any room for one."
"It could sleep on the lounge in my room. I wouldn't let it trouble you any. It is a fine charity, and this is such a good place for a child to play. Isabel will take one for a week, if I will, and I said I would. There is just time, before I go away," Phebe said with an air of finality which would have ended the subject, had it not been for Allyn's last shot,—
"They'd better get its life insured, then, for there's no telling how long it will be before Babe takes it as a subject for her scalpel."
"Don't be foolish, Allyn," Phebe returned; but Hubert interposed,—