"I've my whistle, you know." He played with it irresolutely. "Are you sure I won't be in the way?" "What nonsense!" She stood leaning on the mantel while Patrick made ready the chair. Then, moved by some sudden sense of delicacy, she busied herself with her own wraps when the man bent down and lifted his young master in his strong arms. Since the first day of their meeting, she had never seen Billy moved, and she was struck more keenly than at first with the contrast between the utter limpness of his lower limbs and the bright activity of the rest of the boy. For an instant, her heart gave a quick thump, half of pity, half of loyalty and protecting 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.