“But I wasn’t going to sit still and let him bully that little baby,” Allyn argued.

“No; but you needn’t have tried to bully him in your turn,” his sister answered promptly, though in her heart of hearts she was in perfect sympathy with her young brother.  She gloried in his fearlessness, even while she told herself that he must submit to discipline.  “It wasn’t your place to tell Mr. Mitchell what he ought to do.  He is an older man, and he may have reasons that you don’t know.  He is not accountable to you, Allyn, and his judgment may be better than yours.  Moreover, you owe him obedience, and the McAlisters always pay their debts.”

“Have I got to eat humble pie and go back, Teddy?”

“You’ve got to eat humble pie,” she said, as a laughing note crept into her voice when she thought of Jamie Lyman, insignificant and warty cause of such a storm.  “About your going back, that is for papa to say, dear.  I think you ought to do it.”

“I hate that school!” he muttered restively.

“Why?”

“Don’t like the fellows.”

“What is the matter with them?”

“Foolish.”

“Try the girls, then.”

“They’re worse.”

“Hm.”  Theodora mused aloud.  “Given ten boys:  if nine of them all like each other, and the tenth doesn’t like any of them, where does the trouble lie?  Allyn you are getting cranky.”

“Maybe so; but I can’t help it.”

“Yes, you can, too.  Do you know, you need a chum.”

A sudden flash of fun came into Allyn’s eyes.

“What’s the matter with you, Ted?”

“Me?  I’m too old.  Besides, I am producing literature.”

“And I interrupted,” he said penitently, for he took much satisfaction in his sister’s work.

“No; at least, not much.  I want you to tell me things, Allyn.  We have always been chums, and I should be a good deal jealous of any one else.”

“But I don’t want any one else.  What’s the use?”

“Yes, you want somebody to antic with, while I am busy, just as I have Billy, somebody of your own age, only you must always like me best.  Now come over to see if papa is in his office and talk things over with him.  He can advise you a good deal better than I can, Allyn; but, this time, I think I know about what he will say.”  And she did.

It took more than an hour for Dr. McAlister to explain to his young son the difference between independence and anarchy.  There was a fearlessness in the boy’s point of view that roused his father’s admiration, and more than once he was forced to turn away to hide his amusement at Allyn’s disclaimers of anything like personal affection for Jamie.

“Jamie!” he said, in one final outburst.  “Jamie!  Fifteen years old, and calls himself Jamie!  If he’d only brace up and be Jim, there’d be some sort of hope for him.”

The result of the discussion was the doctor’s sending Allyn back to apologize and take his old place in the school once more, while he sat himself down to write a plain note to the master.  Theodora, meanwhile, went in search of Mrs. McAlister.  She found her in her own room, humming contentedly to herself over the family mending.  Forgetful of her years and her inches, Theodora cast herself down on the floor at her stepmother’s feet.