Teddy's chatter in his ears, in a week he
learned more of the town than he had done in the past three months, and
he came home, hungry and eager as a boy could be, full of blithe gossip
and fun, to enliven his mother over the dinner-table.

"Tell you what, it was a good day for us when we came here," he
remarked, one night in December, when he and his mother were settled by
the open fire in the library.

His mother looked up from her book.

"How do you mean?"

"Everything, especially the Macs. There's Mrs. Mac for you, and Teddy
for me. What more can you want?"

"What about Hope?"

"Hope is a stunner, only there's a sort of Sundayfied flavor to her.
Theodora is better for every day. Hope goes with my best necktie;
'tisn't always that I am able to live up to her. Ted doesn't care
whether I am sick or well, dressed up or rolled in a blanket; she sticks
to me just the same. I say, mother?"

"Well?"

"Are we going down to New York, this winter?"

"Not till later, unless you want to go. Aren't you feeling as well,
Will?" This time, Mrs. Farrington threw aside her book and came forward
to her son's side.

Billy looked up at her with merry eyes which were the duplicate of her
own.

"How you do worry about me, mother!" he said. "I'm gaining, every day,
and you ought to know it. I shall be walking soon. But you've been
saying that we'd go down, some time after Christmas, and I wondered why
we couldn't take Teddy along with us. I can't discover that she's ever
been anywhere, and it's time she had a chance. Don't you think so?"

Mrs. Farrington looked thoughtful.

"I don't know but you're right, Will. I've been thinking I'd like to
give her a little treat, if only because she has been so loyal to you. I
had thought of something else; but if you think she'd like this better,
we'll see about it. Would you rather have Teddy than Hubert?"

"Yes, I like Ted better, even if she is a girl. Hubert has more variety,
too, and wouldn't care so much about it."

"Very well; I will see about it," Mrs. Farrington repeated.

Her son looked up at her gratefully.

"What a trump you are!" he said.

CHAPTER SEVEN

"Well, let's see." Teddy curled one foot under her, in the depths of the
great easy-chair. "There must be two heroines, of course, and two,--no,
three heroes."

"What'll you do with the odd one?" Billy asked.

"Kill him, to be sure." Theodora smacked her lips. "When the girl, his
girl, you know, marries