ting affection. Then she
laid her hands on the bar of Billy's chair.

"That's all, Patrick," she said, nodding up at the tall man beside her.

Patrick surveyed her approvingly. He was critical by nature, and his
smiles were rare; but he liked Theodora for her kindness to his young
master, and he unbent something of his majesty before her, rather to the
surprise of Mrs. Farrington, who was quite accustomed to seeing her
guests quail before the glance of her serving-man.

"Sha'n't I be going with you, Miss Theodora?" he asked.

"Of course. What do you suppose I am going to do without you?" Billy
answered.

But Theodora interposed.

"You needn't come, Patrick. I am going to take Mr. Will, myself."

"Oh, I say, Teddy!" Billy straightened up in his chair.

"That's all right," she said gayly, as she pushed the chair away from
the steps. "Let me do it, Billy; it's much nicer to go by ourselves
without any Patrick, and I promise not to upset you."

"But you oughtn't to do it; 'tisn't the sort of thing a girl ought to
do," he urged. "Truly, Teddy, I don't feel as if I could stand it,
somehow."

Looking into his eyes, as he turned to face her, Theodora read his
sensitive reluctance to receive a service of this kind from a girl, and
a friend of but a few weeks' standing. She let go the handle of his
chair and came forward to his side, where she bent over him, under the
pretext of settling one of the cushions which had slipped aside.

"I wish you'd let me do it for you, Billy," she said, looking honestly
down into his appealing eyes. "I know girls don't usually do this sort
of thing for boys; but it isn't for always, you know, and there isn't
much that I can do for you. If we're going to be real, true friends, you
oughtn't to mind it a bit. You'd do ten times as much for me. Please say
I can take you out often, till you are so you can run away from me. You
know you'd rather go with me than with Patrick." And she looked down at
him with a merry frankness which took away the last shade of
sensitiveness which Billy was ever to know in her company.

It was the first of many similar expeditions. The chair was so light,
and Theodora was so strong for her years, that it never tired her, while
Billy soon discovered that "a walk" with Theodora was quite another
thing from the dull and decorous outings when Patrick tooled him along
through the town, in a solemnly respectful silence. With Teddy's hand on
the bar of his chair and