"I know that, Hu." Theodora raised her head and spoke proudly. "But you're my twin and my other half, better than all the Billys in creation, and I ought to stay with you. What's more, I don't mean to go off again till you can go with me. Billy is Billy, and good fun; but you--" she cuddled her head against him with one of her rare demonstrations of affection--"are my Hu." "I'm sorry, Billy," she said, that evening; "but I can't go out with you, to-morrow. Hu's shut up in the house, and I don't think it is quite fair to leave him, all the time." "Leave him, half the time, then," Billy suggested. Theodora shook her head. "Hu stands first, Billy; and I must look out for him when he's ill." Loyally she kept her word, and, for the next week, she was Hubert's constant attendant and slave. He lorded it over her and played with her by turns; but he appreciated the sacrifice she was making for him and, more than he realized, he enjoyed the return to their old intimate relation. It was not that he was jealous of Billy. It was not that Billy had intentionally come between them. There had been a time, however, when the twins were all in all to each other. Then Theodora's horizon had suddenly broadened to admit Billy. Among his many boy friends, Hubert had found no one with whom he could be on correspondingly intimate terms. He frankly avowed that he liked no one else so well as Teddy, and he had been a little hurt to find that he apparently no longer occupied a similar place in her affections. But, whatever danger there had been of their drifting apart, Hubert's opportune attack of measles seemed to have vanquished it, and the twins stood more firmly than ever before upon their old footing of mutual and unrivalled intimacy. Two days after Hubert went out of doors for the first time, Billy appeared at the McAlisters', demanding Theodora. She was long in presenting herself; and, when she came down, her face was flushed and her lips a little unsteady. "Hullo, Ted! Come for a ride?" "Don't feel like it." "Why not?" "My head aches." "The air will do it good. It's a fine day. Come on." "But I can't." Billy looked perplexed. "What's the row, Ted? Have I done anything?" "Of course not." "What is it? Something's wrong." She hesitated a moment. "Nothing, only my story has come back." "The mischief! When?" "To-day." "What for?" "He said 'twas crude and sensational, and the work of a child." "The old beast! Truly, Ted, I'm so sorry." "So am I; but crying won't mend matters." "Send it to mamma's friend in New York," he suggested kindly. "And be pulled through by force? Not much, Billy Farrington! If my story won't go of itself, I won't have any friends at court helping me on. Some day, I am going to write a novel that will be worth taking. Till then, I won't be helped out on poor work. Wait a minute. I will go to ride, after all." Billy sat looking after her, as she went away in search of her hat.