For an instant, Mrs. McAlister gazed at her guest, at the slender figure and the small oval face crowned with its masses of red-gold hair. Then, to the surprise of every one but Theodora, she gave a joyous outcry,—
"Jessie Everett!"
"Bess!"
Side by side on the moss, a little apart from the others, the two women dropped down and talked incoherently and rapidly, with an interjectional, fragmentary eagerness, trying to tell in detail the story of eighteen years in as many minutes, breaking off, again and again, to exclaim at the strangeness of the chance which had once more brought them together. On one side, the tale was the monotonous record of the successful teacher; on the other was the story of the brilliant marriage, the years of happiness, of seeing the best of life, and the swift tragedy of six months before, which had taken away the husband and left the only son a physical wreck. The years had swept the two friends far apart; their desultory correspondence had dropped; and in this one afternoon of their first meeting, they could only sketch in the bare outlines, and leave time to do the rest.
"And this is my only child," Mrs. Farrington said at last. "You have so many now, Bess, be generous with them, and let Will have as much good of them as he can. Your Teddy has been very kind to him already."
"Teddy?"
"Yes, Theodora as she calls herself. She has been making neighborly calls by way of the fence, and she and Will are excellent friends already. What an unusual girl she is!"
There came a little look of perplexity in Mrs. McAlister's eyes.
"Yes; and yet I find her the hardest one of them all to get at. The fact is, Jessie, I have two or three problems to deal with, and Theodora is not the least of them. Hope and Hubert are conventional enough, and Phebe is openly fractious; but Theodora is more complex. She's the most interesting one to me, but she is decidedly elusive."
"I wish she were mine," Mrs. Farrington said enviously. "I have so longed for a daughter, and she would be so good for Will. He doesn't know anybody here, and he is so handicapped that he can't get acquainted easily. I know he gets horribly tired of me. Women aren't good for boys, either; and now that he is so pitifully helpless, I have to watch myself all the time not to coddle him to death. I hate a prig; you know I always did, Bess, and I am in terror of turning my boy into one. I shall borrow your Teddy, as often as I can, for she is the healthiest companion that he can have."