ubert sat on the rail facing them all.
Theodora had been entertaining them with an account of her journey, and
she ended her story with these words.

"It has been a terrible month," Hope said thoughtfully. "After our years
of placid existence, it seems as if a cyclone had struck us, all at
once. I should think you'd wish you had never set eyes on us, Billy."

"I do," he replied tranquilly, as he stared at Theodora's bright face.

"Poor old William!" she said, laughing. "It was a sorry day for you when
I descended on you from the apple-tree."

"Adam and Eve never knew how well off they were, till the serpent came,"
Archie suggested. "I have a notion we shall have a better time than
ever, now it's all over."

"You can crow over it, if you like," Hubert said remorsefully. "You and
Ted were on the winning side of things. Billy, my friendship isn't good
for much; but I'll be hanged if I ever expected to go back on you and
make such a jay of myself."

"Never mind, Hu; it's over now," Theodora said consolingly.

"Yes, thanks to you," Hubert returned. "My share in it isn't much."

Theodora laughed.

"Thanks to Babe, you'd better say. We should still have been a divided
household, if Babe hadn't been benevolent enough to have chicken pox."

"She didn't," Allyn objected suddenly. "The chicken didn't come out any.
I watched to see it, and I couldn't, and papa said so, too, and that's
what made her so wretchable."

"But it's over, as Teddy says," Hope observed, breaking in on the laugh
that followed Allyn's contribution to medical science; "and I can't help
feeling that we are going to have a lovely winter, with Archie here, and
Billy to stay on till Thanksgiving. There's time to make up for all
we've lost now."

"We'll make the most of it, then, for this will be my last winter here,
for ever so long," Billy said, rising. "If I enter college, next fall,
it will be a good while before I settle down at home again."

"And I too," Theodora added, as she rose and stood beside him.

He smiled down into her eyes for a moment, as they stood there. Then
together they turned and walked away. The world about them lay golden in
the sunlight and in the glow reflected back from the yellow leaves of
the hickories; but not one whit less golden was the future, as it
stretched away and away before their glad young eyes.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

It was commencement week at Smith College. To the alumna and the
student, the pictu