For a week, Theodora gave herself over to the most violent gymnastics she had ever known. For a week, she toiled and perspired and suffered and was strong. Day after day, she patiently indented the floor and walls of the riding school with every possible variety of tumble known to aspiring humanity. Night after night, she counted her bruises and anointed them with liniments. She tore her clothes, and knocked the skin off one side of her nose, and rasped her temper. At the end of the week she emerged, chastened and humbled, yet triumphant. She could ride her bicycle. The whole family came out on the lawn to see her mount. No one of them but Hubert had ever mastered the intricacies of a wheel, and, in consequence, they were loud in their advice. "Why don't you ride here on the grass?" Hope suggested. "Then it won't be so hard, if you fall off." "I don't mean to fall," Theodora protested. "Besides, it's all down hill." "Huh!" Phebe sniffed with scorn. "It's easy enough to ride down hill. I should think anybody could do that; shouldn't you, Isabel?" But Isabel, who knew how to ride, prudently forbore to express an opinion. "Where are you going, Theodora?" Mrs. McAlister called after her. "Out here, where the road is better." "But we want to see you start." "It's sandy here." "What difference does that make?" "Why, I can't push through such sand as that." "How strange! I always thought you were so strong." Theodora clashed her bell in a spirit of wild protest. "How can I do anything, with you all standing here to criticise me?" "Oh, Teddy, how selfish!" Hope's tone was rebuking. "I don't care. Do go in!" she said petulantly, as she started to mount. "Can't you mount any better than that, after all those lessons?" Phebe asked, a moment later, as Theodora picked herself up from beneath her wheel. "I know I could do better than that." "Try it, then." Theodora faced her little sister hotly. Phebe drew back. "I'm--I'm going to the post-office with Isabel, and her mother told us to hurry." Allyn added his voice to the chorus. "Wait," he proclaimed; "I wants to talk. Phebe spokes so much, she takes up all the room." "What now, Allyn?" Hope inquired. "Teddy tumbled over," he returned gravely. "I should fink she could ride now, and not tumble over so much." There was a silence, while Theodora wrestled with her feelings and her wheel. Then Hubert's voice rang down from an upper window, clear and encouraging,-- "Try it again, Ted. You're all right, only you don't know it." She did try it again, and went reeling down the street and in at the Farringtons' gate, where Billy met her with applause. The more stable nature of his own machine had allowed him to master it at once, and now he was only waiting for Theodora, that they might start forth together and conquer the world.