"I don't tell tales, Hope McAlister." And Phebe departed with her chin in the air, leaving Hope to console herself for the rebuke with the reflection that Phebe's code of honor, in such cases, varied according to her own share of the blame. Half an hour later, Phebe appeared to Billy, who sat in an easy-chair before a crackling fire in the library. "Hullo, Phebe!" he exclaimed. "How you was?" "All right. I thought I'd come over and see you, a while." "That's good. You don't often come. Sit down, won't you?" He waved his book hospitably in the direction of a chair. "Where's Teddy? She hasn't been over here for an age." "She's--busy." Phebe spoke with a tone of conscious mystery. "What do you mean?" Billy turned to look at his guest in astonishment. "Oh--nothing." "What is the matter? Is Teddy sick?" "No; she's all right." Phebe gave a hostile sniff. "Then why doesn't she come over?" "I s'pose because she doesn't want to." "Is she mad about anything?" Phebe shook her head mockingly. Then she rose and stood facing him, with her back to the fire. "It's all Teddy, Teddy, Teddy!" she said complainingly. "Nobody takes the trouble to talk to me, and you're just as bad as the rest of them. You needn't think your old Teddy is perfect, for she isn't." "Maybe not; but she is a blamed sight better than you are," Billy answered more bluntly than courteously. [Illustration: "'WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS?' SHE DEMANDED."] "Is she?" Phebe plunged her hand into her pocket. "What do you think of this?" she demanded, pulling out a long brown pigtail and brandishing it before Billy's astonished eyes. "What's that?" "Can't you tell? You've seen it often enough." "Let me see." Billy held out his hand. "Sha'n't. It's Teddy's. She cut it off." "I don't believe it. Let me take it, Babe." His tone was commanding. For her only answer, Phebe sprang back out of his reach, caught her heel in the rug and fell. Her stiff white apron lay for an instant against the grate; the next moment, it blazed above her head. With a swift exclamation, Billy struggled to move, to go to her assistance. Again and again he tried to wrench himself from the chair; then, with a groan, he fell back and blew a long, shrill note on the silver whistle which never left him. In a moment, it was all over. Patrick had rushed in and wrapped Phebe in a rug. Then, more frightened than hurt, the child had started for home, concocting, as she went, a plausible story to account for her charred apron. The maid came in to put the room to rights, and no one knew but Billy, as he ordered Patrick to move him to the sofa, that the sudden strain had done his invalid back a lasting injury. That was three days before, and now Theodora sat twisting his mother's note in her hands and wondering what it all meant.