"That, if the time ever comes again when you want me, or when I can help you, you'll send for me, without waiting. I'm only a girl, I know; but I'm better than nothing, and I never go back on my friends."
Billy smiled up at her benignly.
"No, Ted; I don't believe you ever do. And there are times when 'only a girl' is about as good as anything you can find. Come again."
"I will," she answered.
She kept her word so well that, during all Billy's imprisonment, she never failed to spend a part of each day with him. It did her good to feel that some one counted on her coming and was the better for it. It made her steadier, more reliable; and, in the long, dreary days that followed, she gained a new gentleness from her constant association with her suffering friend. There were days when he was irritable and nervous, days when he was despondent, days when he was too weak with pain to talk; but, during all this time, Theodora was loyal to him, soothing him, cheering him up and bearing his ill-temper with a gentleness which surprised even herself, ministering to his comfort and content to an unmeasured degree, and at the same time gaining a quiet womanliness which she had never known before.
And the days passed on, and the youth and the maiden reaped from them all a harvest of good, a mutual gain from their frank intimacy.
CHAPTER NINE
"And I want a horsey, and a wagon to hatchen on behind," Allyn shouted.
"And I must have a new sled, and I want a set of furs and a canary bird," Phebe clamored.