"If you're ready," said Theodore, putting his head in the door, "I'll walk to school with you. I have something to tell you." "I'm not ready, and don't expect to be," said Miss Billy crossly, giving the lace a pull and breaking it again. "There now, it can never be tied. I shan't go to school at all this morning, so there!" Beatrice was shaking the pillows at the open window. "Why Wilhelmina Lee!" she exclaimed,--"what a temper! How do you ever expect to get through the world if the breaking of a shoe-string upsets you?" "Oh, it's all very well for you to moralise," retorted Miss Billy, trying to repair the offending lacing, "you who have nothing to do but stay at home and play lady, or do a little dusting. Look at me,--going to school every day, taking two music lessons a week, 'way back in my Latin, and those geraniums are not set out yet and it's going to rain this morning. It's enough to make any one wish to die." "We've no time for a funeral this morning," said Mrs. Lee, bustling cheerily into the room. "Beatrice, I shall have to ask you to wash the breakfast dishes. Maggie's toothache is worse, and she is getting ready to go to the dentist. I promised her that I would make the pudding and put the bread into the pans." "Dear me," scolded Beatrice; "I was just going to sweep my room. I can't put it off. Maggie has toothache rather too frequently, I think, and dishwater just ruins my hands!" "Well, of all the howling dervishes this morning!" said Theodore in the hall. "Miss Billy, come along if you're ready, and there'll be one less." The minister stood in the doorway. He held Miss Billy long enough to rub a finger gently over the pucker between her eyes. "It's a brand new day, daughter," he said lovingly. "It's not fair to handicap it at the start with a frown." "I have troubles of my own," said Theodore gloomily, as they jogged off to school together. "I've worked three Saturdays at Brown's, beside Decoration day, and though I haven't drawn a cent of the money, there is only forty cents coming to me." Miss Billy stopped short, and her books fell to the ground. "I'd like to know what kind of arithmetic you call that!" she said, staring. "It's an example in profit and loss, and mainly loss," said Theodore grimly. "Don't breathe it, Sis,--but treats have done it." "Treats!" echoed Miss Billy. "You don't mean to say you have spent three dollars and sixty cents in treats, in that length of time!" "It's awful when you come to look it squarely in the face," acknowledged Theodore. "But the girls come in,--and they expect it,--and what is a fellow to do?" "It's horrid of them, anyhow! And I'll cut their acquaintance,--every one of them,--when I find out who they are!" "You'll do nothing of the kind," said Theodore haughtily. "I'll fight my own battles, if you please." "Three dollars and sixty cents! If I had it in plants!" upbraided Miss Billy. "Three dollars and sixty cents! If I had it in shoes!" mourned Theodore.