Phebe, Her Profession Part 9

"I wonder what she really is like," Theodora said slowly. "Paternal testimony doesn't count for much, and I am beginning to be a little alarmed at what I may have undertaken. _Independent_ and _not too badly spoiled_ are not rea.s.suring phrases, Billy."

"Her mother was as staid as a church, and Harry is sobriety itself, so the girl can't have inherited much original sin from either of them.

Independent from Harry's point of view doesn't mean the same thing that it would from yours. She probably is a mild-mannered little product of the times."

"I don't know just what I do want," Theodora sighed. "One minute, I hope she will be a modest violet; the next, I am in terror lest she be too insipid. What are girls of that age like, Billy? It is years since I have known any of them. Just now, I am in doubt whether I may not shock her even more than she will shock me. The modern girl is a staid and decorous creature, I suspect; not such a tomboy as I was."

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 antic.i.p.ated.

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

Both Theodora and Billy started and whirled around. In the rush of incoming pa.s.sengers, 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?"

"Oh, no; I've only this cape, and there's no need of disturbing Billy,"

Cicely replied, too absorbed in rubbing away a stray tear or two to heed the glance of astonishment exchanged between her new relatives at the unexpected freedom of her use of Mr. Farrington's name.

Seated in the carriage, all three were conscious of an awkward pause.

Cicely broke it.

"Cousin Will, don't you feel as if you had a white elephant on your hands?" she asked so unexpectedly that Theodora blushed and wondered if the girl had been reading her thoughts.

"No; only a grey one. I confess you are larger than I expected to see you. When I met you before, you could have been packed into a peck basket."

"They say I was a good baby," Cicely said reflectively; "they always emphasize the word _baby_, though, and that hurts my feelings."

"You cried a great deal, and you spent half your energy in trying to eat your own toes. You wore worsted slippers then," Billy answered, amused at a certain off-hand ease that marked her manner. "Perhaps you have improved since then."

"I hope so; but there may be room for it, even now," she returned, laughing.

"Are you going to miss your old friends too much, Cicely?" Theodora asked. "I have a young brother about your age."

"Really? I didn't know that. Is he near you?"

"Next door."

"I'm so glad, for I like boys. I have always been used to them, not flirty; papa wouldn't allow that, but just good friends." Cicely's manner showed her constant a.s.sociation with older people. She and her father had been always together, and their companions.h.i.+p had left its mark upon her.

There was no trace of shyness in her manner, no hesitation in taking her share in the conversation. She was perfectly frank, perfectly at ease, yet perfectly remote from any suggestion of pertness. She only a.s.sumed it quite as a matter of course that it was worth while to listen to her. "Is your brother like you?"

"No; not really. But you can see for yourself, for he promised to call on you, this evening." Theodora prudently forbore to mention that she had obtained Allyn's promise only at the expense of much coaxing and some bribery.

"That will be good," Cicely remarked with satisfaction. "Papa always says that boys are good for girls; they keep you from getting priggish and conceited. They take all that out of you. What is your brother's name?"

"Allyn."

"I'm glad it is something out of the usual run. Have you some sisters?"

"One, at home."

Cicely clasped her hands contentedly.

"I didn't know I was coming into a whole family. I supposed I should just have to get along with you and Billy--not but what you'd have been enough," she added hastily, as this time she caught the glance exchanged between Theodora and her husband; "only it is rather good to have some young people within reach. Still, it isn't going to be all play for me.

Papa wants me to keep up my practice, and that takes five hours a day."

"What kind of practice?" Theodora asked, as the carriage stopped at the steps.

"Piano. I play a good deal. Oh, what a dear place this is! Am I going to live here?" And she ran lightly up the steps, too eager to hear Billy's despairing,--

"Ted! Five hours of strumming, every day! What will you do?"

Or Theodora's laughing reply,--

"I can forgive that, Billy; but it is still rankling within me that we are no longer young. Alas for our vanished youth!"

"Alas for the frankness of childhood, you'd better say," Billy responded.

Inside the broad hall, Cicely walked up to the blazing fire and rested one slim foot on the fender for a moment. Then she bent down and carefully unrolled the cape. The tag end of grey fur stirred itself; there was a little growl, a little bark, and a little grey dog squirmed out of his nest and went waddling away across the rug.

"Mercy on us! What's that?" Theodora gasped, as the little creature shook himself with a vehemence which fairly hoisted him off his hind legs, then flew at the nearest claw of the tiger skin and fell to worrying it.

"That?" Cicely's tone was tinged with a pride almost maternal. "That's Billy. He is a thoroughbred Yorks.h.i.+re. Isn't he a dear?"