Suddenly Cicely understood him.

"There is no sort of sense in your going away, Cis," Billy said to her,
as soon as he heard of her talk with Gifford Barrett. "Your Cousin
Theodora and I both would be delighted to have you stay here for the
present. The fact is, child, we shall miss you awfully, and can't stand
it to have you go. You will stay with us; won't you?"

"I wish I could; but it wouldn't be fair. Papa needs me."

"You can't do any good, Cis. You're better off here."

"To live on you, and leave papa alone to stand things, the best way he
can? That's not my way, Cousin Will."

"But if you can't help him?"

"I can. If I couldn't do anything else, I could make a little corner of
home for him, and he will need it. He needs me. We have been together
always, till just this last year when he had to go away, and now I'm not
going to leave him to shift for himself."

"Do you know what you are undertaking, Cicely?" he asked her gravely.

"I think I do," she answered quite as gravely. "We shall have to go into
a horrid little flat, somewhere in the wrong end of town, and pinch and
scrimp to get along. I hate it, hate the very idea of it, and I wish I
could stay here; but it is all out of the question. If papa ever needed
the good of a daughter, it's now, and I must meet him when he lands. I
must go, Cousin Will, so please don't make it any harder for me than it
is anyway."

And Billy, as he watched her face and heard her words, forbore to urge,
even though he dreaded for Cicely the future of which she spoke so
bravely. The crash had been more disastrous and final than he had been
led to suppose from the earlier reports. Both he and Theodora would
have been only too glad to keep Cicely in their home; but they knew the
girl was right, her place was with her father. Accordingly, they ceased
to oppose; and only did their best to make the rest of her stay with
them as happy as possible and to help her in her plans for her future
home. Together with the McAlisters, they chose their Christmas gifts
for her carefully, wisely, even merrily, for fun had a large share in
Christmas at The Savins; but only Theodora knew that Billy had bought a
small annuity for Cicely, and that the papers were to be given to her,
not in the basket on Christmas eve, but when she was quite alone, on
Christmas morning.

"I've a good deal more than we are likely to use," Billy had said rather
apologetically, one night; "and even if it doesn't s