wait to be in our own home again, Billy, and gossip with you after dinner
in the library. People are so in the way. It will be like a second
honeymoon, with nobody to interrupt us."

He laughed at her enthusiasm.

"Old married people like us! But you will mourn for Mac, Ted; you know
you will."

Forgetting the familiar landscape, she turned to face him with a laugh
which chased all the dreaminess from her eyes.

"Billy Farrington! But did you ever know such a mockery of fate?"

"As Mac?"

"Yes, as Hope's having such a child?"

"It is a little incongruous."

"It is preposterous. Hope was always the meek angel of the household, and
Archie is not especially obstreperous. But Mac--" Theodora's pause was
expressive.

Billy laughed.

"He combines the face of an angel and the wisdom of a serpent," he
remarked. "I don't know whether his morals or his vocabulary are more
startling. Hope has her hands full; but she will find a way to manage
him, even if she can't learn from her own childhood, as you could."