"No matter; they can wait till noon. Farewell, my niece, and mind your teacher."
"I will, Uncle Archie."
Two months before this time, soon after Billy had begun to rally from the mysterious strain to his back, Mrs. Farrington had appeared in the doctor's office, one evening.
"As usual, I am asking a favor," she said. "At last, I have succeeded in getting a really good tutor for Billy. The man was instructor in Yale till his health failed, and he is highly recommended to me. Billy is bright and well advanced for his age, so I think he and Hubert must be doing about the same work. It is so lonely for him, do you suppose Hubert, or Theodora, or both of them, would be willing to study with him, to keep him company?"
The matter was settled in family council, that same evening. Though it seemed to Dr. McAlister too fine an opportunity to be lost, he left it entirely to the choice of the children. Theodora accepted the new plan with prompt delight. Hubert hesitated, chose the tutor, chose to stay in school with his boy friends, dreaded to be separated from Theodora, and finally decided to remain in the school. Two months later, Theodora was reading the Anabasis, while Hubert was still toiling over the intricacies of the irregular verb.
The tutor proved to be a good one, and, from the start, it was a close race between Theodora and Billy. He was eighteen months the older; she was in perfect health, and her lithe young body held an equally active mind. Moreover, she was determined not to be outdone by Billy, nor yet be a drag upon him, so she fell to work with a will and accomplished wonders, while Mr. Brown daily rejoiced that his lines had fallen in such pleasant places.
At dinner-time, Archie appeared, laden with his offerings for his adopted family circle.
"I shot this beast, myself, Bess," he said, as he threw a great rug at her feet. "He was an eight-hundred-pound grizzly who liked the smell of our supper. If you feel of his head, you can find the holes where I shot him. Tom Keyes and I tracked him by the blood on the snow, and we finally cornered him. I thought Hubert might like these antlers, and here's some trumpery for the others."
As he spoke, he tossed a handful of little packages about the group, which quickly became clamorous in its joy. Theodora looked up from her great nugget mounted on a slender pin, to discover that Billy too had been included in the frolic, and she shot an approving glance at Archie just as Allyn climbed to the young man's knee.
"Fank you," the child said, with a sounding kiss. "I love you, and I wish you'd come again and bring me nonner engine, Uncle Archie."