Late the next afternoon they both drove to the station to meet their new relative.  In spite of herself, as the time came nearer, Theodora was inclined to treat the whole affair as an immense joke; but her husband had misgivings.  Theodora was fitted to cope with any girl he had ever known; but he feared she might find the process more wearing than she anticipated.

“I beg your pardon, but is this Mr. Farrington?”

Both Theodora and Billy started and whirled around.  In the rush of incoming passengers, they had been looking for some one smaller, more childish than this tall girl who stood before them.  She was not at all pretty.  Her brown hair was too straight and lank and light, and her grey eyes had a trick of narrowing themselves to a line; but her expression was frank and open, and she wore her simple grey suit with an air which spoke volumes for her past training.  Across her arm hung a bright golf cape with a tag end of grey fur sticking out from the topmost folds.

“Are you Cicely?” Mr. Farrington inquired.

“Yes, and I suppose you are Cousin William.  Papa said I’d know you by your hair.”  She caught herself, with a sudden blush.  “Oh, I don’t mean that,” she added hastily; “I think red hair is just lovely, only it is rather uncommon you know.”

Mr. Farrington laughed.

“Yes, fortunately,” he remarked.

Cicely eyed him askance for a moment; then she too burst out laughing, while two deep dimples appeared in her cheeks and a queer little pucker came at the outer corners of her eyes.  There was something so fresh, so heartily frank about her that Theodora felt a sudden liking for the girl, a sudden homesick twinge for her own healthy girlhood.

“There, I have made another of my speeches!” Cicely was saying, with a contrition that was only half mockery.  “I’m always doing it, and you will have to put up with it.  But truly I don’t mind red hair, as long as it doesn’t curl; and I hadn’t any idea of being rude.”

“Mine is tolerably straight, and I’m not very sensitive about it now for I have had it for some time,” Billy observed gravely.  “Cicely, this is your Cousin Theodora.”

The girl turned around and stretched out her hand eagerly.

“Oh, I am so glad to be with you!” she said.  “It seems to me I’ve loved you always, just from your books.  You are so good to let me come to you.  Am I going to be very much in the way?  I’ll try to be very good, just as good as I know how.”

“And not be homesick?” Theodora asked laughingly, as she took Cicely’s hand in both of hers.

Instantly the grey eyes clouded.

“I’ll try not,” Cicely answered.  “I know I shall be happy, only—­I wish papa needn’t go so far away.  We are all there are, you know, only Uncle Joe.”  Her lips quivered a little, as Theodora bent down to kiss them.

“Never mind, dear,” she said.  “It won’t be for so very long, and I hope you can be happy with us, even if we are strangers to you.  Can’t Cousin Will take some of your things?”