Two days later, Mrs. Farrington took the morning train for New York, where she was to meet her brother and go with him to the Adirondacks. Billy stood on the steps to wave her a farewell; then he slowly crossed the lawn towards the gate which had been cut through the fence under "Teddy's tree." For the next week or two, he and Theodora were busy from morning till night, revelling in the thousand and one interests for which the days had been all too short, when they were obliged to take their meals and to sleep in places six hundred feet apart. One golden September day, Billy and Theodora were out under the old apple-tree, hard at work on the play which they had long been planning to write. It was to be given on the following Christmas; and the parts, written to order, included the three older McAlisters, Billy, and Archie who had promised to come East in time for the holidays. There was need for strict division of labor. Billy, more familiar with theatres, was able to supply the stage craft and the plot, while Theodora padded the skeleton and covered the dry bones of his outline with sonorous speeches over which she was forced to pause, now and then, to smack her lips. "'Die, villain, die; and drink the cup of retribution for all your sins!'" she read. "How does that go, Billy?" "All right. Do I say that, or does Hu?" "Hu. Poor Uncle Archie! Then he tumbles over with a whack and dies in Hope's arms." "What kills him? You never do half kill people, Ted. You take too much for granted." "Conscience. No; Hu, that is, Sir James, shoots him." "I remember now. I'd forgotten. I hope Hu's a safe shot." "He couldn't hit a church, if he tried." Theodora giggled. "What's the matter, Hope?" For she saw Hope coming rapidly across the lawn towards them. "Bad news, dear." Hope's eyes were full of tears. "Mamma has a letter from Butte, and Archie is in the hospital there, with typhoid fever." "Hope! Not really?" "Do they think he'll die?" Billy asked anxiously, with boyish bluntness. Hope's tears began to fall on the letter in her hand. "They say he's very ill, and that they felt it was best to write. Papa says typhoid is always uncertain, and he wants mamma to start West, to-night." "Will she go?" "I don't know yet. She's half wild, for Archie is her only brother, and she loves him so." "Don't we all?" Theodora questioned impulsively. Even in the midst of her tears, Hope blushed scarlet. "Not in the same way, Teddy," she said gently. "You know they were all alone with each other for so long. I hope she will go." "It would be better if I weren't here," Billy said thoughtfully. "No; you're like one of us, Billy, and it's easier, with you here to be sorry for us," Hope said gratefully, for she had been quick to realize the sympathy in his look and tone. "Besides, it may not be so bad. Mamma, if she goes, may find him better and able to come home with her."