erly banter. The girl herself was
radiant. Nothing could be very wrong in a world like this. Suppose Jimsy
had slipped once--twice--half a dozen times, when she was far away
across the water? One swallow didn't make a spring and one slip (or
several) didn't make a "Wild King" out of Jimsy. She was going to find
him and talk it over and straighten it out and bring him back here where
he belonged, where they both belonged, where they would stay. His
expulsion from Stanford really simplified matters, when you came to
think of it; now there need be no tiresome talk of waiting until he
graduated from college. And she had not the faintest intention of going
back to Italy. Just as soon as Jimsy could find something to do (and her
good Stepper would see to that) they would be married and move into the
old King house, and _how_ she would love opening it up to the sun and
air and making it gay with new colors! All this in her quiet mind while
she breakfasted sturdily with her noisy tribe. Good to be with them
again, better still to be coming back to them, to stay with them, to
live beside them, always.

Her train went at ten and the boys would be in school and her mother had
an appointment with the lady whose ministrations kept her hair at its
natural tint and Honor would not hear of her breaking it, so it was her
stepfather only who took her to the station. She was rather glad of that
and it made her put an unconscious extra fervor, remorsefully, into her
farewells to the rest. Just as she was leaving her room there was a
thump on her door and a simultaneous opening of it. Ted, her eldest
Carmody brother, came in and closed the door behind him. He was a Senior
at L. A. High, a football star of the second magnitude and a personable
youth in all ways, and her heart warmed to him.

"Ted,--dear! I thought you'd gone to school!"

"I'm just going. Sis,--I"--he came close to her, his bonny young face
suddenly scarlet--"I just wanted to say--I know why you're going down
there, and--and I'm for you a million! He's all right, old Jimsy. Don't
you let anybody tell you he isn't. I--you're a sport to pike down there
all by yourself. _You're all right_, Sis! I'm strong for you!"

"Ted!" The distance between them melted; she felt the hug of his hard
young arms and there was a lump in her throat and tears in her eyes, but
she fought them back. He would be aghast at her if she cried. He
wouldn't be for her a million any longer. She must not b