"How should I know? I don't read your letters."
It was the same Phebe, older and taller, but otherwise unchanged. Now her tone was slightly toploftical.
"I didn't suppose you did," Theodora answered, while she rose to pick up the letter. "I can't say you are over-ceremonious with it, Babe."
"Don't care." And Phebe vanished as abruptly as she had come.
The letter was not from Billy. The handwriting was strange; and Theodora turned it over and over nervously, before she ventured to open it. Then of a sudden the color came into her cheeks, and her eyes flashed. Seizing the letter, she opened the door and ran down the stairs.
"Hope! Hu! Somebody!" she called, with a glad, exultant note in her voice.
She called again. Then she heard Phebe's voice from the lawn.
"I am here. What do you want?"
"Where is everybody?" Theodora asked, stepping out on the piazza.
"I'm here." Phebe's accent suggested that her feelings were hurt at the question.