"What's the matter with him, anyway?" Theodora inquired, as she reached out for her brother's hand and fell to playing with his slender brown fingers.
"Papa told me he was jammed into a corner, with a lot of stuff on top of him, and his back is hurt so he can't walk."
"Ugh!" Theodora wriggled. "How horrid! Won't he get over it?"
"Sometime; but it will take a good while."
"How did they happen to come here?" Hope said.
"They wanted to move into the country. Dr. Parker is their regular doctor, and he advised them to try papa, so they came here to be near him. Papa told me, on the way to the station, the day he went. He had a great, thick letter from Dr. Parker all about it."
"And so they are really in the house. It has been empty so long that I can't realize it," Hope observed thoughtfully. "Of course, if he were a girl, it would make more difference to us."
"I don't see why," Theodora said, as she pulled off the ribbon from one of her braids, and untied the bow.
"Why, because—Don't you see? He can't come to us, and we can't go there; that is, none of us but Hu."
"I don't see why," Theodora said again.