“Some girl that’s heard the overture,” he said to himself.  “I don’t seem to remember her, though.  She has a good figure and she rides well; but what a color!  She will have apoplexy, some day, if she’s not careful.”

The next day, Eulaly Sykes’s boarder had started for the Maine coast where three unmusical, but sympathetic maidens were waiting to help him pass the dreary days of his convalescence.

CHAPTER NINE

Two willow chairs were swaying to and fro in the gathering dusk, and two voices were blended in a low murmur.  Theodora and Billy were exchanging the confidences born of a long week of separation while business had called Mr. Farrington to New York.

“How comes on the book, Ted?”

She shook her head.

“It doesn’t come.”

“Does Cicely’s being here disturb you?”

“No, not really; not nearly so much as Melchisedek.  In an unguarded moment, I asked him, one day, to come and help auntie write books.  Since then he rushes from his breakfast straight to my room and capers madly on the threshold till I appear.”

“And then?”

“Then he insists on lying in my lap and resting his head on my arm, and he snarls, every time I joggle him.  It isn’t helpful or inspiring, Billy.”

“No; I should say not.  What is the story, Ted?”

“I’m not going to tell even you, Billy,” she returned quickly.  “It always demoralizes me to talk over my stories while they are evolving.  I must work them out alone.  It seems conceited and selfish; but there’s no help for it.  You believe it; don’t you?”

“I’ll trust you, Ted.  But is this hero very hectic?”

It was an old joke, but they were still laughing over it when Cicely appeared in the doorway, with Melchisedek under her arm.

“Cousin Theodora?” she said interrogatively, for the piazza was dark.

“Yes.”

“I want to talk.”

“You generally do, Cis,” Billy observed unkindly.

“Yes; but I mean I have something to talk about.  I don’t always.”

“Shall I go away?” he asked politely.

“No; I want a man’s view of it, too.  But perhaps you were busy and I’ll be in the way.”

For her reply, Theodora drew another chair into the group.  Cicely sat down, balanced Melchisedek on her knee and fell to poking his grey hair this way and that, as if at a loss how to begin the conversation.

“How far is it safe for a girl to follow up a boy?” she asked abruptly, yet with a little catch in her breath.

“Meaning yourself?” Billy queried.

“Yes, of course.”

“I should say it depended a good deal on the boy.”

“I mean Allyn.”

“What’s the matter?  Have you had a falling out?”

“Yes, we are always doing it.  I can’t seem to help it, either.  It’s horrid.  He is outspoken and tells me what he thinks of me; I’m peppery, and I don’t like it.”