won't!"

She raised her head again to look at the smiling lips and the tender eyes. Then abruptly she dragged forward a chair, climbed to the top of the piano and took down the portrait which had hung there since the day of its first entering the house.

It was late, that afternoon, when the carriage stopped before the house, and Dr. McAlister, with his bride on his arm, came up the walk. The children were waiting to greet them, Phebe perched on the fence, Hope on the steps with Allyn clinging to her hand, and the twins in the doorway, while old Susan stood in the hall, ready to welcome her new mistress.

There was the little flurry of meeting, the swift buzz of talk. Then Hope led the way into the great, airy parlor which she had not entered before, that day.

On the threshold, she paused, aghast. Directly facing her stood a large easel which usually held a fine engraving of the Dolorosa. To-day, however, the Dolorosa was displaced. It stood on the floor by the piano, and in its place was the portrait of Hope's own mother, looking up to greet the woman who had come to take her place in the home. Across the corner of the frame lay a pile of white bride roses, tied with a heavy purple ribbon.

"Don't mind it, Jack," Mrs. McAlister said to her husband, as soon as they were alone together. "I like the child's spirit. Leave it to me, please. I think I can make friends with her before long."

Theodora was standing before the mirror, that night, brush in hand, while the wavy masses of her hair fell about her like a heavy cape. Her eyes looked dull, and the corners of her mouth drooped dejectedly. She started suddenly when an unexpected knock came at her door.

"Come," she responded.

The door swung open, and Mrs. McAlister stood on the threshold. In her trailing blue wrapper with its little lace ruffles at the throat and wrists, she looked younger than she had done in her travelling gown, and the pure, deep color was not one bit deeper and purer than the color of the eyes above it.

"May I come in to say good-night?" she asked, pausing in the doorway, for Theodora's face was slightly forbidding.

"Of course." The girl drew forward a low willow chair.

As she passed, Mrs. McAlister laid a caressing hand on the brown hair.

"What a mass of it you have!" she said, seating herself and looking up at her stepdaughter who stood before her, not knowing how to meet this unexpected invasion.

The remark seemed to call for no reply, and Theodora took up her brush again.

"Did you have a pleasant journey?" she asked, after a pause.

"Very; but the home-coming was pleasantest of all. It was very sweet of you all to be at the door to welcome me."

"That was Hope's doing," Theodora said bluntly. "She told us we ought to be there when you came."

"It was good, whoever thought of it," Mrs. McAlister answered gently. "Remember that it is years since I've known what it meant to come home."

Theodora tossed aside her hair and turned to face her.

"How do you mean?" she asked curiously.

"My father and mother died when I was in college," her stepmother replied. "There were only two of us left, my little brother and I, and we never had a home, a real one, after that. I taught, and he was sent away to school."

"Where is he now?"

"In Montana, a civil engineer. I find it hard to realize that my little brother Archie is twenty-two, and a grown man."

There was another pause. Then Mrs. McAlister suddenly drew a low footstool to her side.

"Theodora, child," she said; "sit down here and let me talk to you. You seem so far off, standing there. Remember, I'm a stranger to you all, and I want somebody to cuddle me a little, this first night."

She had chanced to strike the right chord. Theodora never failed to respond to an appeal to her sympathy and care. All enveloped in her loosened hair, she dropped down at her stepmother's side.

"You aren't homesick, I hope."

"No; I couldn't be, with such a welcome home. But papa is down in the office, and I needed somebody to talk to. I thought you'd understand, dear. And then there were things I wanted to say to you."

"What?" Theodora asked suspiciously.

Mrs. McAlister rested her hand on the girl's shoulder.

"About the flowers, for one thing. I know so well how you felt, Theodora, when you put them there."

"What do you mean?" Theodora faced her sharply.

"My own mother died before I was seventeen, a year before my father did, and I used to wake up in the night and cry, because I was so afraid he would marry again."

"But you married papa," Theodora said slowly.

"I know I did. Since then, Theodora, I have come to see the other side of it all. But I remember the way I used to feel about it; and I know that you think I am an interloper here. Hope doesn't mind it so much, nor Hubert; it is hardest of all for you." She paused and stroked the brown hair again.

Theodora sat silent, her eyes fixed on the floor.

"I sha'n't mean to come between you and your father, Theodora," Mrs. McAlister went on; "and I shall never expect to take your own mother's place. And yet, in time I hope you can care for me a little, too."

Suddenly the girl turned and laid her lithe young arm across her stepmother's knee.

"I think I can—in time," she said. "It takes me a good while to get used to new things, some new things, that is, and I didn't want somebody to come here and drive my own mother farther off. She was different from everybody else, somehow. But your mother died, and you'll understand about it." Her tone was quiet and dispassionate, yet, underneath, it rang true, and Mrs. McAlister was satisfied.

"Thank you, Teddy," she said gently. "Or would you rather I called you Theodora?"

"Theodora, please," the girl answered, flushing a little. "Teddy was my baby name; but I'm not a baby any longer. The others have called me Teddy so long that I can't break them of the habit; but I don't like the name."

"It suits you, though," Mrs. McAlister said, smiling as her eyes rested on the intent young face beside her. "But I'll try to remember. And now I wish you'd tell me a little about the younger ones, Phebe and Allyn. Your father told me that Hope was the housekeeper, but that, in some ways, you were the real mother of them all."

Theodora's face lighted, and she laughed.

"Did he truly say that? Hope has the real care of them, and she never fights with them, as I do."

There was an amusing, off-hand directness in Theodora's tone which pleased her stepmother. Already she felt more at home and on cordial terms with the outspoken girl than with the gentle, courteous Hope; yet she realized that her own course was by no means open before her, that it would be long before Theodora would accept her sway in the home. It would be necessary to proceed slowly, but firmly. Little Allyn and fractious Phebe would be less difficult for her to manage than their older sister. She lingered for half an hour longer, talking with Theodora until she heard Dr. McAlister's step upon the stairs; and when at last she left the room, Theodora's good-night sounded quite as cordial as her own.

CHAPTER FOUR

"I wish I could have all my wishes granted," Theodora said.

She was sitting in her favorite position on the grass beside Billy's lounge, with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her clasped hands. Billy, propped up among his cushions, smiled back at her