"My dear boy," he said, laying his hand on Billy's shoulder; "our troubles are over now, if Phebe pulls through."
Billy answered his handclasp.
"We'll forget it ever happened," he said jovially.
"One doesn't forget such things," the doctor said gravely; but Billy laughed his old glad, clear laugh.
"You've done enough for me, Dr. McAlister, to balance anything else. Remember what I was when I came here, and look at me now."
The family council which followed was short. Neither Dr. McAlister nor his wife liked to leave Phebe while she was still so ill; Hubert was too young, they felt, to go to his sister; so it was Archie who finally volunteered to bring back the runaway.
"Shall I scold her very hard?" he asked, laughing, as he took up his dress-suit case, an hour later.
"Leave that to me," the doctor replied, while he tried in vain to look stern.
As Archie passed him, Billy slipped a note into his hand.
"Take that to Ted," he whispered, and Archie nodded.