Allyn was a boy, and, boylike he was not prone to sentiment. He only said,-- "Don't worry your head about that, Cis. You've given me a good deal more than you know, this last year." Surprised, she sat up and stared at him. "Me? I? I've not given you a thing, Allyn, only those cuff buttons, your birthday." He looked at her steadily for a moment, Then he said,-- "Maybe not. I thought you had, though." Suddenly Cicely understood him. "There is no sort of sense in your going away, Cis," Billy said to her, as soon as he heard of her talk with Gifford Barrett. "Your Cousin Theodora and I both would be delighted to have you stay here for the present. The fact is, child, we shall miss you awfully, and can't stand it to have you go. You will stay with us; won't you?" "I wish I could; but it wouldn't be fair. Papa needs me." "You can't do any good, Cis. You're better off here." "To live on you, and leave papa alone to stand things, the best way he can? That's not my way, Cousin Will." "But if you can't help him?" "I can. If I couldn't do anything else, I could make a little corner of home for him, and he will need it. He needs me. We have been together always, till just this last year when he had to go away, and now I'm not going to leave him to shift for himself." "Do you know what you are undertaking, Cicely?" he asked her gravely. "I think I do," she answered quite as gravely. "We shall have to go into a horrid little flat, somewhere in the wrong end of town, and pinch and scrimp to get along. I hate it, hate the very idea of it, and I wish I could stay here; but it is all out of the question. If papa ever needed the good of a daughter, it's now, and I must meet him when he lands. I must go, Cousin Will, so please don't make it any harder for me than it is anyway." And Billy, as he watched her face and heard her words, forbore to urge, even though he dreaded for Cicely the future of which she spoke so bravely. The crash had been more disastrous and final than he had been led to suppose from the earlier reports. Both he and Theodora would have been only too glad to keep Cicely in their home; but they knew the girl was right, her place was with her father. Accordingly, they ceased to oppose; and only did their best to make the rest of her stay with them as happy as possible and to help her in her plans for her future home. Together with the McAlisters, they chose their Christmas gifts for her carefully, wisely, even merrily, for fun had a large share in Christmas at The Savins; but only Theodora knew that Billy had bought a small annuity for Cicely, and that the papers were to be given to her, not in the basket on Christmas eve, but when she was quite alone, on Christmas morning. "I've a good deal more than we are likely to use," Billy had said rather apologetically, one night; "and even if it doesn't support her, it may as well help along a little. Cicely is a good girl, and I wish there were more like her."