Billy drew back suddenly. Her face paled. As if now she could tell this man that Bertram Henshaw was engaged to her! He would find it out soon, of course, for himself; and perhaps he, like Hugh Calderwell, would think it was the curve of her cheek, or the tilt of her chin—

Billy lifted her chin very defiantly now as she held out her hand in good-by.



CHAPTER IX. A RUG, A PICTURE, AND A GIRL AFRAID

Thanksgiving came. Once again the Henshaw brothers invited Billy and Aunt Hannah to spend the day with them. This time, however, there was to be an additional guest present in the person of Marie Hawthorn.

And what a day it was, for everything and everybody concerned! First the Strata itself: from Dong Ling's kitchen in the basement to Cyril's domain on the top floor, the house was as spick-and-span as Pete's eager old hands could make it. In the drawing-room and in Bertram's den and studio, great clusters of pink roses perfumed the air, and brightened the sombre richness of the old-time furnishings. Before the open fire in the den a sleek gray cat—adorned with a huge ribbon bow the exact shade of the roses (Bertram had seen to that!)—winked and blinked sleepy yellow eyes. In Bertram's studio the latest "Face of a Girl" had made way for a group of canvases and plaques, every one of which showed Billy Neilson in one pose or another. Up-stairs, where William's chaos of treasures filled shelves and cabinets, the place of honor was given to a small black velvet square on which rested a pair of quaint Battersea enamel mirror knobs. In Cyril's rooms—usually so austerely bare—a handsome Oriental rug and several curtain-draped chairs hinted at purchases made at the instigation of a taste other than his own.

When the doorbell rang Pete admitted the ladies with a promptness that was suggestive of surreptitious watching at some window. On Pete's face the dignity of his high office and the delight of the moment were fighting for mastery. The dignity held firmly through Mrs. Stetson's friendly greeting; but it fled in defeat when Billy Neilson stepped over the threshold with a cheery "Good morning, Pete."

"Laws! But it's good to be seein' you here again," stammered the man,—delight now in sole possession.

"She'll be coming to stay, one of these days, Pete," smiled the eldest Henshaw, hurrying forward.

"I wish she had now," whispered Bertram, who, in spite of William's quick stride, had reached Billy's side first.

From the stairway came the patter of a man's slippered feet.

"The rug has come, and the curtains, too," called a "householder" sort of voice that few would have recognized as belonging to Cyril Henshaw. "You must all come up-stairs and see them after dinner." The voice, apparently, spoke to everybody; but the eyes of the owner of the voice plainly saw only the fair-haired young woman who stood a little in the shadow behind Billy, and who was looking about her now as at something a little fearsome, but very dear.

"You know—I've never been—where you live—before," explained Marie Hawthorn in a low, vibrant tone, when Cyril bent over her to take the furs from her shoulders.

In Bertram's den a little later, as hosts and guests advanced toward the fire, the sleek gray cat rose, stretched lazily, and turned her head with majestic condescension.

"Well, Spunkie, come here," commanded Billy, snapping her fingers at the slow-moving creature on the hearthrug. "Spunkie, when I am your mistress, you'll have to change either your name or your nature. As if I were going to have such a bunch of independent moderation as you masquerading as an understudy to my frisky little Spunk!"

Everybody laughed. William regarded his namesake with fond eyes as he said:

"Spunkie doesn't seem to be worrying." The cat had jumped into Billy's lap with a matter-of-course air that was unmistakable—and to Bertram, adorable. Bertram's eyes, as they rested on Billy, were even fonder than were his brother's.

"I don't think any one is—worrying," he said with quiet emphasis.

Billy smiled.

"I should think they might be," she answered. "Only think how dreadfully upsetting I was in the first place!"

William's beaming face grew a little stern.

"Nobody knew it but Kate—and she didn't know it; she only imagined it," he said tersely.

Billy shook her head.

"I'm not so sure," she demurred. "As I look back at it now, I think I can discern a few evidences myself—that I was upsetting. I was a bother to Bertram in his painting, I am sure."

"You were an inspiration," corrected Bertram. "Think of the posing you did for me."

A swift something like a shadow crossed Billy's face; but before her lover could question its meaning, it was gone.

"And I know I was a torment to Cyril." Billy had turned to the musician now.

"Well, I admit you were a little—upsetting, at times," retorted that individual, with something of his old imperturbable rudeness.

"Nonsense!" cut in William, sharply. "You were never anything but a comfort in the house, Billy, my dear—and you never will be."

"Thank you," murmured Billy, demurely. "I'll remember that—when Pete and I disagree about the table decorations, and Dong Ling doesn't like the way I want my soup seasoned."

An anxious frown showed on Bertram's face.

"Billy," he said in a low voice, as the others laughed at her sally, "you needn't have Pete nor Dong Ling here if you don't want them."

"Don't want them!" echoed Billy, indignantly. "Of course I want them!"

"But—Pete is old, and—"

"Yes; and where's he grown old? For whom has he worked the last fifty years, while he's been growing old? I wonder if you think I'd let Pete leave this house as long as he wants to stay! As for Dong Ling—"

A sudden movement of Bertram's hand arrested her words. She looked up to find Pete in the doorway.

"Dinner is served, sir," announced the old butler, his eyes on his master's face.

William rose with alacrity, and gave his arm to Aunt Hannah.

"Well, I'm sure we're ready for dinner," he declared.

It was a good dinner, and it was well served. It could scarcely have been otherwise with Dong Ling in the kitchen and Pete in the dining-room doing their utmost to please. But even had the turkey been tough instead of tender, and even had the pies been filled with sawdust instead of with delicious mincemeat, it is doubtful if four at the table would have known the difference: Cyril and Marie at one end were discussing where to put their new sideboard in their dining-room, and Bertram and Billy at the other were talking of the next Thanksgiving, when, according to Bertram, the Strata would have the "dearest little mistress that ever was born." As if, under these circumstances, the tenderness of the turkey or the toothsomeness of the mince pie mattered! To Aunt Hannah and William, in the centre of the table, however, it did matter; so it was well, of course, that the dinner was a good one.

"And now," said Cyril, when dinner was over, "suppose you come up and see the rug."

In compliance with this suggestion, the six trailed up the long flights of stairs then, Billy carrying an extra shawl for Aunt Hannah—Cyril's rooms were always cool.

"Oh, yes, I knew we should need it," she nodded to Bertram, as she picked up the shawl from the hall stand where she had left it when she came in. "That's why I brought it."

"Oh, my grief and conscience, Cyril, how can you stand it?—to climb stairs like this," panted Aunt Hannah, as she reached the top of the last flight and dropped breathlessly into the nearest chair—from which Marie had rescued a curtain just in time.

"Well, I'm not sure I could—if I were always to eat a Thanksgiving dinner just before," laughed Cyril. "Maybe I ought to have waited and let you rest an hour or two."

"But 'twould have been too dark, then, to see the rug," objected Marie. "It's a genuine Persian—a Kirman, you know; and I'm so proud of it," she added, turning to the others. "I wanted you to see the colors by daylight. Cyril likes it better, anyhow, in the daytime."

"Fancy Cyril liking any sort of a rug at any time," chuckled Bertram, his eyes on the rich, softly blended colors of the rug before him. "Honestly, Miss Marie," he added, turning to the little bride elect, "how did you ever manage to get him to buy any rug? He won't have so much as a ravelling on the floor up here to walk on."

A startled dismay came into Marie's blue eyes.

"Why, I thought he wanted rugs," she faltered. "I'm sure he said—"

"Of course I want rugs," interrupted Cyril, irritably. "I want them everywhere except in my own especial den. You don't suppose I want to hear other people clattering over bare floors all day, do you?"

"Of course not!" Bertram's face was preternaturally grave as he turned to the little music teacher. "I hope, Miss Marie, that you wear rubber heels on your shoes," he observed solicitously.

Even Cyril laughed at this, though all he said was:

"Come, come, I got you up here to look at the rug."

Bertram, however, was not to be silenced.

"And another thing, Miss Marie," he resumed, with the air of a true and tried adviser. "Just let me give you a pointer. I've lived with your future husband a good many years, and I know what I'm talking about."

"Bertram, be still," growled Cyril.

Bertram refused to be still.

"Whenever you want to know anything about Cyril, listen to his playing. For instance: if, after dinner, you hear a dreamy waltz or a sleepy nocturne, you may know that all is well. But if on your ears there falls anything like a dirge, or the wail of a lost spirit gone mad, better look to your soup and see if it hasn't been scorched, or taste of your pudding and see if you didn't put in salt instead of sugar."

"Bertram, will you be still?" cut in Cyril, testily, again.

"After all, judging from what Billy tells me," resumed Bertram, cheerfully, "what I've said won't be so important to you, for you aren't the kind that scorches soups or uses salt for sugar. So maybe I'd better put it to you this way: if you want a new sealskin coat or an extra diamond tiara, tackle him when he plays like this!" And with a swift turn Bertram dropped himself to the piano stool and dashed into a rollicking melody that half the newsboys of Boston were whistling.

What happened next was a surprise to every one. Bertram, very much as if he were a naughty little boy, was jerked by a wrathful brother's hand off the piano stool. The next moment the wrathful brother himself sat at the piano, and there burst on five pairs of astonished ears a crashing dissonance which was but the prelude to music such as few of the party often heard.

Spellbound they listened while rippling runs and sonorous harmonies filled the room to overflowing, as if under the fingers of the player there were—not the keyboard of a piano—but the violins, flutes, cornets, trombones, bass viols and kettledrums of a full orchestra.

Billy, perhaps, of them all, best understood. She knew that in those tripping melodies and crashing chords were Cyril's joy at the presence of Marie, his wrath at the flippancy of Bertram, his ecstasy at that for which the rug and curtains stood—the little woman sewing in the radiant circle of a shaded lamp. Billy knew that all this and more were finding voice at Cyril's finger tips. The others, too, understood in a way; but they, unlike Billy, were not in the habit of finding on a few score bits of wood and ivory a vent for their moods and fancies.

The music was softer now. The resounding chords and purling runs had become a bell-like melody that wound itself in and out of a maze of exquisite harmonies, now hiding, now coming out clear and unafraid, like a mountain stream emerging into a sunlit meadow from the leafy shadows of its forest home.

In a breathless hush the melody quivered into silence. It was Bertram who broke the pause with a long-drawn:

"By George!" Then, a little unsteadily: "If it's I that set you going like that, old chap, I'll come up and play ragtime every day!"

Cyril shrugged his shoulders and got to his feet.

"If you've seen all you want of the rug we'll go down-stairs," he said nonchalantly.

"But we haven't!" chorussed several indignant voices. And for the next few minutes not even the owner of the beautiful Kirman could find any fault with the quantity or the quality of the attention bestowed on his new possession. But Billy, under cover of the chatter, said reproachfully in his ear:

"Oh, Cyril, to think you can play like that—and won't—on demand!"

"I can't—on demand," shrugged Cyril again.

On the way down-stairs they stopped at William's rooms.

"I want you to see a couple of Batterseas I got last week," cried the collector eagerly, as he led the way to the black velvet square. "They're fine—and I think she looks like you," he finished, turning to Billy, and holding out one of the knobs, on which was a beautifully executed miniature of a young girl with dark, dreamy eyes.

"Oh, how pretty!" exclaimed Marie, over Billy's shoulder. "But what are they?"

The collector turned, his face alight.

"Mirror knobs. I've got lots of them. Would you like to see them—really? They're right here."

The next minute Marie found herself looking into a cabinet where lay a score or more of round and oval discs of glass, porcelain, and metal, framed in silver, gilt, and brass, and mounted on long spikes.

"Oh, how pretty," cried Marie again; "but how—how queer! Tell me about them, please."

William drew a long breath. His eyes glistened. William loved to talk—when he had a curio and a listener.

"I will. Our great-grandmothers used them, you know, to support their mirrors, or to fasten back their curtains," he explained ardently. "Now here's another Battersea enamel, but it isn't so good as my new ones—that face is almost a caricature."

"But what a beautiful ship—on that round one!" exclaimed Marie. "And what's this one?—glass?"

"Yes; but that's not so rare as the others. Still, it's pretty enough. Did you notice this one, with the bright red and blue and green on the white background?—regular Chinese mode of decoration, that is."

"Er—any time, William," began Bertram, mischievously; but William did not seem to hear.

"Now in this corner," he went on, warming to his subject, "are the enamelled porcelains. They were probably made at the Worcester works—England, you know; and I think many of them are quite as pretty as the Batterseas. You see it was at Worcester that they invented that variation of the transfer printing process that they called bat printing, where they used oil instead of ink, and gelatine instead of paper. Now engravings for that kind of printing were usually in stipple work—dots, you know—so the prints on these knobs can easily be distinguished from those of the transfer printing. See? Now, this one is—"

"Er, of course, William, any time—" interposed Bertram again, his eyes twinkling.

William stopped with a laugh.

"Yes, I know. 'Tis time I talked of something else, Bertram," he conceded.

"But 'twas lovely, and I was interested, really," claimed Marie. "Besides, there are such a lot of things here that I'd like to see," she finished, turning slowly about.

"These are what he was collecting last year," murmured Billy, hovering over a small cabinet where were some beautiful specimens of antique jewelry brooches, necklaces, armlets, Rajah rings, and anklets, gorgeous in color and exquisite in workmanship.

"Well, here is something you will enjoy," declared Bertram, with an airy flourish. "Do you see those teapots? Well, we can have tea every day in the year, and not use one of them but five times. I've counted. There are exactly seventy-three," he concluded, as he laughingly led the way from the room.

"How about leap year?" quizzed Billy.

"Ho! Trust Will to find another 'Old Blue' or a 'perfect treasure of a black basalt' by that time," shrugged Bertram.

Below William's rooms was the floor once Bertram's, but afterwards given over to the use of Billy and Aunt Hannah. The rooms were open to-day, and were bright with sunshine and roses; but they were very plainly unoccupied.

"And you don't use them yet?" remonstrated Billy, as she paused at an open door.

"No. These are Mrs. Bertram Henshaw's rooms," said the youngest Henshaw brother in a voice that made Billy hurry away with a dimpling blush.

"They were Billy's—and they can never seem any one's but Billy's, now," declared William to Marie, as they went down the stairs.

"And now for the den and some good stories before the fire," proposed Bertram, as the six reached the first floor again.

"But we haven't seen your pictures, yet," objected Billy.

Bertram made a deprecatory gesture.

"There's nothing much—" he began; but he stopped at once, with an odd laugh. "Well, I sha'n't say that," he finished, flinging open the door of his studio, and pressing a button that flooded the room with light. The next moment, as they stood before those plaques and panels and canvases—on each of which was a pictured "Billy"—they understood the change in his sentence, and they laughed appreciatively.

"'Much,' indeed!" exclaimed William.

"Oh, how lovely!" breathed Marie.

"My grief and conscience, Bertram! All these—and of Billy? I knew you had a good many, but—" Aunt Hannah paused impotently, her eyes going from Bertram's face to the pictures again.

"But how—when did you do them?" queried Marie.

"Some of them from memory. More of them from life. A lot of them were just sketches that I did when she was here in the house four or five years ago," answered Bertram; "like this, for instance." And he pulled into a better light a picture of a laughing, dark-eyed girl holding against her cheek a small gray kitten, with alert, bright eyes. "The original and only Spunk," he announced.

"What a dear little cat!" cried Marie.

"You should have seen it—in the flesh," remarked Cyril, dryly. "No paint nor painter could imprison that untamed bit of Satanic mischief on any canvas that ever grew!"

Everybody laughed—everybody but Billy. Billy, indeed, of them all, had been strangely silent ever since they entered the studio. She stood now a little apart. Her eyes were wide, and a bit frightened. Her fingers were twisting the corners of her handkerchief nervously. She was looking to the right and to the left, and everywhere she saw—herself.

Sometimes it was her full face, sometimes her profile; sometimes there were only her eyes peeping from above a fan, or peering from out brown shadows of nothingness. Once it was merely the back of her head showing the mass of waving hair with its high lights of burnished bronze. Again it was still the back of her head with below it the bare, slender neck and the scarf-draped shoulders. In this picture the curve of a half-turned cheek showed plainly, and in the background was visible a hand holding four playing cards, at which the pictured girl was evidently looking. Sometimes it was a merry Billy with dancing eyes; sometimes a demure Billy with long lashes caressing a flushed cheek. Sometimes it was a wistful Billy with eyes that looked straight into yours with peculiar appeal. But always it was—Billy.

"There, I think the tilt of this chin is perfect." It was Bertram speaking.

Billy gave a sudden cry. Her face whitened. She stumbled forward.

"No, no, Bertram, you—you didn't mean the—the tilt of the chin," she faltered wildly.

The man turned in amazement.

"Why—Billy!" he stammered. "Billy, what is it?"

The girl fell back at once. She tried to laugh lightly. She had seen the dismayed questioning in her lover's eyes, and in the eyes of William and the others.

"N-nothing," she gesticulated hurriedly. "It was nothing at all, truly."

"But, Billy, it was something." Bertram's eyes were still troubled. "Was it the picture? I thought you liked this picture."

Billy laughed again—this time more naturally.

"Bertram, I'm ashamed of you—expecting me to say I 'like' any of this," she scolded, with a wave of her hands toward the omnipresent Billy. "Why, I feel as if I were in a room with a thousand mirrors, and that I'd been discovered putting rouge on my cheeks and lampblack on my eyebrows!"

William laughed fondly. Aunt Hannah and Marie gave an indulgent smile. Cyril actually chuckled. Bertram only still wore a puzzled expression as he laid aside the canvas in his hands.

Billy examined intently a sketch she had found with its back to the wall. It was not a pretty sketch; it was not even a finished one, and Billy did not in the least care what it was. But her lips cried interestedly:

"Oh, Bertram, what is this?"

There was no answer. Bertram was still engaged, apparently, in putting away some sketches. Over by the doorway leading to the den Marie and Aunt Hannah, followed by William and Cyril, were just disappearing behind a huge easel. In another minute the merry chatter of their voices came from the room beyond. Bertram hurried then straight across the studio to the girl still bending over the sketch in the corner.

"Bertram!" gasped Billy, as a kiss brushed her cheek.

"Pooh! They're gone. Besides, what if they did see? Billy, what was the matter with the tilt of that chin?"

Billy gave an hysterical little laugh—at least, Bertram tried to assure himself that it was a laugh, though it had sounded almost like a sob.

"Bertram, if you say another word about—about the tilt of that chin, I shall scream!" she panted.

"Why, Billy!"

With a nervous little movement Billy turned and began to reverse the canvases nearest her.

"Come, sir," she commanded gayly. "Billy has been on exhibition quite long enough. It is high time she was turned face to the wall to meditate, and grow more modest."

Bertram did not answer. Neither did he make a move to assist her. His ardent gray eyes were following her slim, graceful figure admiringly.

"Billy, it doesn't seem true, yet, that you're really mine," he said at last, in a low voice shaken with emotion.

Billy turned abruptly. A peculiar radiance shone in her eyes and glorified her face. As she stood, she was close to a picture on an easel and full in the soft glow of the shaded lights above it.

"Then you do want me," she began, "—just me!—not to—" she stopped short. The man opposite had taken an eager step toward her. On his face was the look she knew so well, the look she had come almost to dread—the "painting look."

"Billy, stand just as you are," he was saying. "Don't move. Jove! But that effect is perfect with those dark shadows beyond, and just your hair and face and throat showing. I declare, I've half a mind to sketch—" But Billy, with a little cry, was gone.



CHAPTER X

A JOB FOR PETE—AND FOR BERTRAM

The early days in December were busy ones, certainly, in the little house on Corey Hill. Marie was to be married the twelfth. It was to be a home wedding, and a very simple one—according to Billy, and according to what Marie had said it was to be. Billy still serenely spoke of it as a "simple affair," but Marie was beginning to be fearful. As the days passed, bringing with them more and more frequent evidences either tangible or intangible of orders to stationers, caterers, and florists, her fears found voice in a protest.

"But Billy, it was to be a simple wedding," she cried.

"And so it is."

"But what is this I hear about a breakfast?"

Billy's chin assumed its most stubborn squareness.

"I don't know, I'm sure, what you did hear," she retorted calmly.

"Billy!"

Billy laughed. The chin was just as stubborn, but the smiling lips above it graced it with an air of charming concession.

"There, there, dear," coaxed the mistress of Hillside, "don't fret. Besides, I'm sure I should think you, of all people, would want your guests fed!"

"But this is so elaborate, from what I hear."

"Nonsense! Not a bit of it."

"Rosa says there'll be salads and cakes and ices—and I don't know what all."

Billy looked concerned.

"Well, of course, Marie, if you'd rather have oatmeal and doughnuts," she began with kind solicitude; but she got no farther.

"Billy!" besought the bride elect. "Won't you be serious? And there's the cake in wedding boxes, too."

"I know, but boxes are so much easier and cleaner than—just fingers," apologized an anxiously serious voice.

Marie answered with an indignant, grieved glance and hurried on.

"And the flowers—roses, dozens of them, in December! Billy, I can't let you do all this for me."

"Nonsense, dear!" laughed Billy. "Why, I love to do it. Besides, when you're gone, just think how lonesome I'll be! I shall have to adopt somebody else then—now that Mary Jane has proved to be nothing but a disappointing man instead of a nice little girl like you," she finished whimsically.

Marie did not smile. The frown still lay between her delicate brows.

"And for my trousseau—there were so many things that you simply would buy!"

"I didn't get one of the egg-beaters," Billy reminded her anxiously.

Marie smiled now, but she shook her head, too.

"Billy, I cannot have you do all this for me."

"Why not?"

At the unexpectedly direct question, Marie fell back a little.

"Why, because I—I can't," she stammered. "I can't get them for myself, and—and—"

"Don't you love me?"

A pink flush stole to Marie's face.

"Indeed I do, dearly."

"Don't I love you?"

The flush deepened.

"I—I hope so."

"Then why won't you let me do what I want to, and be happy in it? Money, just money, isn't any good unless you can exchange it for something you want. And just now I want pink roses and ice cream and lace flounces for you. Marie,"—Billy's voice trembled a little—"I never had a sister till I had you, and I have had such a good time buying things that I thought you wanted! But, of course, if you don't want them—" The words ended in a choking sob, and down went Billy's head into her folded arms on the desk before her.

Marie sprang to her feet and cuddled the bowed head in a loving embrace.

"But I do want them, dear; I want them all—every single one," she urged. "Now promise me—promise me that you'll do them all, just as you'd planned! You will, won't you?"

There was the briefest of hesitations, then came the muffled reply:

"Yes—if you really want them."

"I do, dear—indeed I do. I love pretty weddings, and I—I always hoped that I could have one—if I ever married. So you must know, dear, how I really do want all those things," declared Marie, fervently. "And now I must go. I promised to meet Cyril at Park Street at three o'clock." And she hurried from the room—and not until she was half-way to her destination did it suddenly occur to her that she had been urging, actually urging Miss Billy Neilson to buy for her pink roses, ice cream, and lace flounces.

Her cheeks burned with shame then. But almost at once she smiled.

"Now wasn't that just like Billy?" she was saying to herself, with a tender glow in her eyes.

It was early in December that Pete came one day with a package for Marie from Cyril. Marie was not at home, and Billy herself went downstairs to take the package from the old man's hands.

"Mr. Cyril said to give it to Miss Hawthorn," stammered the old servant, his face lighting up as Billy entered the room; "but I'm sure he wouldn't mind your taking it."

"I'm afraid I'll have to take it, Pete, unless you want to carry it back with you," she smiled. "I'll see that Miss Hawthorn has it the very first moment she comes in."

"Thank you, Miss. It does my old eyes good to see your bright face." He hesitated, then turned slowly. "Good day, Miss Billy."

Billy laid the package on the table. Her eyes were thoughtful as she looked after the old man, who was now almost to the door. Something in his bowed form appealed to her strangely. She took a quick step toward him.

"You'll miss Mr. Cyril, Pete," she said pleasantly.

The old man stopped at once and turned. He lifted his head a little proudly.

"Yes, Miss. I—I was there when he was born. Mr. Cyril's a fine man."

"Indeed he is. Perhaps it's your good care that's helped, some—to make him so," smiled the girl, vaguely wishing that she could say something that would drive the wistful look from the dim old eyes before her.

For a moment Billy thought she had succeeded. The old servant drew himself stiffly erect. In his eyes shone the loyal pride of more than fifty years' honest service. Almost at once, however, the pride died away, and the wistfulness returned.

"Thank ye, Miss; but I don't lay no claim to that, of course," he said. "Mr. Cyril's a fine man, and we shall miss him; but—I cal'late changes must come—to all of us."

Billy's brown eyes grew a little misty.

"I suppose they must," she admitted.

The old man hesitated; then, as if impelled by some hidden force, he plunged on:

"Yes; and they'll be comin' to you one of these days, Miss, and that's what I was wantin' to speak to ye about. I understand, of course, that when you get there you'll be wantin' younger blood to serve ye. My feet ain't so spry as they once was, and my old hands blunder sometimes, in spite of what my head bids 'em do. So I wanted to tell ye—that of course I shouldn't expect to stay. I'd go."

As he said the words, Pete stood with head and shoulders erect, his eyes looking straight forward but not at Billy.

"Don't you want to stay?" The girlish voice was a little reproachful.

Pete's head drooped.

"Not if—I'm not wanted," came the husky reply.

With an impulsive movement Billy came straight to the old man's side and held out her hand.

"Pete!"

Amazement, incredulity, and a look that was almost terror crossed the old man's face; then a flood of dull red blotted them all out and left only worshipful rapture. With a choking cry he took the slim little hand in both his rough and twisted ones much as if he were possessing himself of a treasured bit of eggshell china.

"Miss Billy!"

"Pete, there aren't a pair of feet in Boston, nor a pair of hands, either, that I'd rather have serve me than yours, no matter if they stumble and blunder all day! I shall love stumbles and blunders—if you make them. Now run home, and don't ever let me hear another syllable about your leaving!"

They were not the words Billy had intended to say. She had meant to speak of his long, faithful service, and of how much they appreciated it; but, to her surprise, Billy found her own eyes wet and her own voice trembling, and the words that she would have said she found fast shut in her throat. So there was nothing to do but to stammer out something—anything, that would help to keep her from yielding to that absurd and awful desire to fall on the old servant's neck and cry.

"Not another syllable!" she repeated sternly.

"Miss Billy!" choked Pete again. Then he turned and fled with anything but his usual dignity.

Bertram called that evening. When Billy came to him in the living-room, her slender self was almost hidden behind the swirls of damask linen in her arms.

Bertram's eyes grew mutinous.

"Do you expect me to hug all that?" he demanded.

Billy flashed him a mischievous glance.

"Of course not! You don't have to hug anything, you know."

For answer he impetuously swept the offending linen into the nearest chair and drew the girl into his arms.

"Oh! And see how you've crushed poor Marie's table-cloth!" she cried, with reproachful eyes.

Bertram sniffed imperturbably.

"I'm not sure but I'd like to crush Marie," he alleged.

"Bertram!"

"I can't help it. See here, Billy." He loosened his clasp and held the girl off at arm's length, regarding her with stormy eyes. "It's Marie, Marie, Marie—always. If I telephone in the morning, you've gone shopping with Marie. If I want you in the afternoon for something, you're at the dressmaker's with Marie. If I call in the evening—"

"I'm here," interrupted Billy, with decision.

"Oh, yes, you're here," admitted Bertram, aggrievedly, "and so are dozens of napkins, miles of table-cloths, and yards upon yards of lace and flummydiddles you call 'doilies.' They all belong to Marie, and they fill your arms and your thoughts full, until there isn't an inch of room for me. Billy, when is this thing going to end?"

Billy laughed softly. Her eyes danced.

"The twelfth;—that is, there'll be a—pause, then."

"Well, I'm thankful if—eh?" broke off the man, with a sudden change of manner. "What do you mean by 'a pause'?"

Billy cast down her eyes demurely.

"Well, of course this ends the twelfth with Marie's wedding; but I've sort of regarded it as an—understudy for one that's coming next October, you see."

"Billy, you darling!" breathed a supremely happy voice in a shell-like ear—Billy was not at arm's length now.

Billy smiled, but she drew away with gentle firmness.

"And now I must go back to my sewing," she said.

Bertram's arms did not loosen. His eyes had grown mutinous again.

"That is," she amended, "I must be practising my part of—the understudy, you know."

"You darling!" breathed Bertram again; this time, however, he let her go.

"But, honestly, is it all necessary?" he sighed despairingly, as she seated herself and gathered the table-cloth into her lap. "Do you have to do so much of it all?"

"I do," smiled Billy, "unless you want your brother to run the risk of leading his bride to the altar and finding her robed in a kitchen apron with an egg-beater in her hand for a bouquet."

Bertram laughed.

"Is it so bad as that?"

"No, of course not—quite. But never have I seen a bride so utterly oblivious to clothes as Marie was till one day in despair I told her that Cyril never could bear a dowdy woman."

"As if Cyril, in the old days, ever could bear any sort of woman!" scoffed Bertram, merrily.

"I know; but I didn't mention that part," smiled Billy. "I just singled out the dowdy one."

"Did it work?"

Billy made a gesture of despair.

"Did it work! It worked too well. Marie gave me one horrified look, then at once and immediately she became possessed with the idea that she was a dowdy woman. And from that day to this she has pursued every lurking wrinkle and every fold awry, until her dressmaker's life isn't worth the living; and I'm beginning to think mine isn't, either, for I have to assure her at least four times every day now that she is not a dowdy woman."

"You poor dear," laughed Bertram. "No wonder you don't have time to give to me!"

A peculiar expression crossed Billy's face.

"Oh, but I'm not the only one who, at times, is otherwise engaged, sir," she reminded him.

"What do you mean?"

"There was yesterday, and last Monday, and last week Wednesday, and—"

"Oh, but you let me off, then," argued Bertram, anxiously. "And you said—"

"That I didn't wish to interfere with your work—which was quite true," interrupted Billy in her turn, smoothly. "By the way,"—Billy was examining her stitches very closely now—"how is Miss Winthrop's portrait coming on?"

"Splendidly!—that is, it was, until she began to put off the sittings for her pink teas and folderols. She's going to Washington next week, too, to be gone nearly a fortnight," finished Bertram, gloomily.

"Aren't you putting more work than usual into this one—and more sittings?"

"Well, yes," laughed Bertram, a little shortly. "You see, she's changed the pose twice already."

"Changed it!"

"Yes. Wasn't satisfied. Fancied she wanted it different."

"But can't you—don't you have something to say about it?"

"Oh, yes, of course; and she claims she'll yield to my judgment, anyhow. But what's the use? She's been a spoiled darling all her life, and in the habit of having her own way about everything. Naturally, under those circumstances, I can't expect to get a satisfactory portrait, if she's out of tune with the pose. Besides, I will own, so far her suggestions have made for improvement—probably because she's been happy in making them, so her expression has been good."

Billy wet her lips.

"I saw her the other night," she said lightly. (If the lightness was a little artificial Bertram did not seem to notice it.) "She is certainly—very beautiful."

"Yes." Bertram got to his feet and began to walk up and down the little room. His eyes were alight. On his face the "painting look" was king. "It's going to mean a lot to me—this picture, Billy. In the first place I'm just at the point in my career where a big success would mean a lot—and where a big failure would mean more. And this portrait is bound to be one or the other from the very nature of the thing."

"I-is it?" Billy's voice was a little faint.

"Yes. First, because of who the sitter is, and secondly because of what she is. She is, of course, the most famous subject I've had, and half the artistic world knows by this time that Marguerite Winthrop is being done by Henshaw. You can see what it'll be—if I fail."

"But you won't fail, Bertram!"

The artist lifted his chin and threw back his shoulders.

"No, of course not; but—" He hesitated, frowned, and dropped himself into a chair. His eyes studied the fire moodily. "You see," he resumed, after a moment, "there's a peculiar, elusive something about her expression—" (Billy stirred restlessly and gave her thread so savage a jerk that it broke)"—a something that isn't easily caught by the brush. Anderson and Fullam—big fellows, both of them—didn't catch it. At least, I've understood that neither her family nor her friends are satisfied with their portraits. And to succeed where Anderson and Fullam failed—Jove! Billy, a chance like that doesn't come to a fellow twice in a lifetime!" Bertram was out of his chair, again, tramping up and down the little room.

Billy tossed her work aside and sprang to her feet. Her eyes, too, were alight, now.

"But you aren't going to fail, dear," she cried, holding out both her hands. "You're going to succeed!"

Bertram caught the hands and kissed first one then the other of their soft little palms.

"Of course I am," he agreed passionately, leading her to the sofa, and seating himself at her side.

"Yes, but you must really feel it," she urged; "feel the 'sure' in yourself. You have to!—to doing things. That's what I told Mary Jane yesterday, when he was running on about what he wanted to do—in his singing, you know."

Bertram stiffened a little. A quick frown came to his face.

"Mary Jane, indeed! Of all the absurd names to give a full-grown, six-foot man! Billy, do, for pity's sake, call him by his name—if he's got one."

Billy broke into a rippling laugh.

"I wish I could, dear," she sighed ingenuously.

"Honestly, it bothers me because I can't think of him as anything but 'Mary Jane.' It seems so silly!"

"It certainly does—when one remembers his beard."

"Oh, he's shaved that off now. He looks rather better, too."

Bertram turned a little sharply.

"Do you see the fellow—often?"

Billy laughed merrily.

"No. He's about as disgruntled as you are over the way the wedding monopolizes everything. He's been up once or twice to see Aunt Hannah and to get acquainted, as he expresses it, and once he brought up some music and we sang; but he declares the wedding hasn't given him half a show."

"Indeed! Well, that's a pity, I'm sure," rejoined Bertram, icily.

Billy turned in slight surprise.

"Why, Bertram, don't you like Mary Jane?"

"Billy, for heaven's sake! Hasn't he got any name but that?"

Billy clapped her hands together suddenly.

"There, that makes me think. He told Aunt Hannah and me to guess what his name was, and we never hit it once. What do you think it is? The initials are M. J."

"I couldn't say, I'm sure. What is it?"

"Oh, he didn't tell us. You see he left us to guess it."

"Did he?"

"Yes," mused Billy, abstractedly, her eyes on the dancing fire. The next minute she stirred and settled herself more comfortably in the curve of her lover's arm. "But there! who cares what his name is? I'm sure I don't."

"Nor I," echoed Bertram in a voice that he tried to make not too fervent. He had not forgotten Billy's surprised: "Why, Bertram, don't you like Mary Jane?" and he did not like to call forth a repetition of it. Abruptly, therefore, he changed the subject. "By the way, what did you do to Pete to-day?" he asked laughingly. "He came home in a seventh heaven of happiness babbling of what an angel straight from the sky Miss Billy was. Naturally I agreed with him on that point. But what did you do to him?"

Billy smiled.

"Nothing—only engaged him for our butler—for life."

"Oh, I see. That was dear of you, Billy."

"As if I'd do anything else! And now for Dong Ling, I suppose, some day."

Bertram chuckled.

"Well, maybe I can help you there," he hinted. "You see, his Celestial Majesty came to me himself the other day, and said, after sundry and various preliminaries, that he should be 'velly much glad' when the 'Little Missee' came to live with me, for then he could go back to China with a heart at rest, as he had money 'velly much plenty' and didn't wish to be 'Melican man' any longer."

"Dear me," smiled Billy, "what a happy state of affairs—for him. But for you—do you realize, young man, what that means for you? A new wife and a new cook all at once? And you know I'm not Marie!"

"Ho! I'm not worrying," retorted Bertram with a contented smile; "besides, as perhaps you noticed, it wasn't Marie that I asked—to marry me!"



CHAPTER XI. A CLOCK AND AUNT HANNAH

Mrs. Kate Hartwell, the Henshaw brothers' sister from the West, was expected on the tenth. Her husband could not come, she had written, but she would bring with her, little Kate, the youngest child. The boys, Paul and Egbert, would stay with their father.

Billy received the news of little Kate's coming with outspoken delight.

"The very thing!" she cried. "We'll have her for a flower girl. She was a dear little creature, as I remember her."

Aunt Hannah gave a sudden low laugh.

"Yes, I remember," she observed. "Kate told me, after you spent the first day with her, that you graciously informed her that little Kate was almost as nice as Spunk. Kate did not fully appreciate the compliment, I fear."

Billy made a wry face.

"Did I say that? Dear me! I was a terror in those days, wasn't I? But then," and she laughed softly, "really, Aunt Hannah, that was the prettiest thing I knew how to say, for I considered Spunk the top-notch of desirability."

"I think I should have liked to know Spunk," smiled Marie from the other side of the sewing table.

"He was a dear," declared Billy. "I had another 'most as good when I first came to Hillside, but he got lost. For a time it seemed as if I never wanted another, but I've about come to the conclusion now that I do, and I've told Bertram to find one for me if he can. You see I shall be lonesome after you're gone, Marie, and I'll have to have something," she finished mischievously.

"Oh, I don't mind the inference—as long as I know your admiration of cats," laughed Marie.

"Let me see; Kate writes she is coming the tenth," murmured Aunt Hannah, going back to the letter in her hand.

"Good!" nodded Billy. "That will give time to put little Kate through her paces as flower girl."

"Yes, and it will give Big Kate time to try to make your breakfast a supper, and your roses pinks—or sunflowers," cut in a new voice, dryly.

"Cyril!" chorussed the three ladies in horror, adoration, and amusement—according to whether the voice belonged to Aunt Hannah, Marie, or Billy.

Cyril shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

"I beg your pardon," he apologized; "but Rosa said you were in here sewing, and I told her not to bother. I'd announce myself. Just as I got to the door I chanced to hear Billy's speech, and I couldn't resist making the amendment. Maybe you've forgotten Kate's love of managing—but I haven't," he finished, as he sauntered over to the chair nearest Marie.

"No, I haven't—forgotten," observed Billy, meaningly.

"Nor I—nor anybody else," declared a severe voice—both the words and the severity being most extraordinary as coming from the usually gentle Aunt Hannah.

"Oh, well, never mind," spoke up Billy, quickly. "Everything's all right now, so let's forget it. She always meant it for kindness, I'm sure."

"Even when she told you in the first place what a—er—torment you were to us?" quizzed Cyril.

"Yes," flashed Billy. "She was being kind to you, then."

"Humph!" vouchsafed Cyril.

For a moment no one spoke. Cyril's eyes were on Marie, who was nervously trying to smooth back a few fluffy wisps of hair that had escaped from restraining combs and pins.

"What's the matter with the hair, little girl?" asked Cyril in a voice that was caressingly irritable. "You've been fussing with that long-suffering curl for the last five minutes!"

Marie's delicate face flushed painfully.

"It's got loose—my hair," she stammered, "and it looks so dowdy that way!"

Billy dropped her thread suddenly. She sprang for it at once, before Cyril could make a move to get it. She had to dive far under a chair to capture it—which may explain why her face was so very red when she finally reached her seat again.

On the morning of the tenth, Billy, Marie, and Aunt Hannah were once more sewing together, this time in the little sitting-room at the end of the hall up-stairs.

Billy's fingers, in particular, were flying very fast.

"I told John to have Peggy at the door at eleven," she said, after a time; "but I think I can finish running in this ribbon before then. I haven't much to do to get ready to go."

"I hope Kate's train won't be late," worried Aunt Hannah.

"I hope not," replied Billy; "but I told Rosa to delay luncheon, anyway, till we get here. I—" She stopped abruptly and turned a listening ear toward the door of Aunt Hannah's room, which was open. A clock was striking. "Mercy! that can't be eleven now," she cried. "But it must be—it was ten before I came up-stairs." She got to her feet hurriedly.

Aunt Hannah put out a restraining hand.

"No, no, dear, that's half-past ten."

"But it struck eleven."

"Yes, I know. It does—at half-past ten."

"Why, the little wretch," laughed Billy, dropping back into her chair and picking up her work again. "The idea of its telling fibs like that and frightening people half out of their lives! I'll have it fixed right away. Maybe John can do it—he's always so handy about such things."

"But I don't want it fixed," demurred Aunt Hannah.

Billy stared a little.

"You don't want it fixed! Maybe you like to have it strike eleven when it's half-past ten!" Billy's voice was merrily sarcastic.

"Y-yes, I do," stammered the lady, apologetically. "You see, I—I worked very hard to fix it so it would strike that way."

"Aunt Hannah!"

"Well, I did," retorted the lady, with unexpected spirit. "I wanted to know what time it was in the night—I'm awake such a lot."

"But I don't see." Billy's eyes were perplexed. "Why must you make it tell fibs in order to—to find out the truth?" she laughed.

Aunt Hannah elevated her chin a little.

"Because that clock was always striking one."

"One!"

"Yes—half-past, you know; and I never knew which half-past it was."

"But it must strike half-past now, just the same!"

"It does." There was the triumphant ring of the conqueror in Aunt Hannah's voice. "But now it strikes half-past on the hour, and the clock in the hall tells me then what time it is, so I don't care."

For one more brief minute Billy stared, before a sudden light of understanding illumined her face. Then her laugh rang out gleefully.

"Oh, Aunt Hannah, Aunt Hannah," she gurgled. "If Bertram wouldn't call you the limit—making a clock strike eleven so you'll know it's half-past ten!"

Aunt Hannah colored a little, but she stood her ground.

"Well, there's only half an hour, anyway, now, that I don't know what time it is," she maintained, "for one or the other of those clocks strikes the hour every thirty minutes. Even during those never-ending three ones that strike one after the other in the middle of the night, I can tell now, for the hall clock has a different sound for the half-hours, you know, so I can tell whether it's one or a half-past."

"Of course," chuckled Billy.

"I'm sure I think it's a splendid idea," chimed in Marie, valiantly; "and I'm going to write it to mother's Cousin Jane right away. She's an invalid, and she's always lying awake nights wondering what time it is. The doctor says actually he believes she'd get well if he could find some way of letting her know the time at night, so she'd get some sleep; for she simply can't go to sleep till she knows. She can't bear a light in the room, and it wakes her all up to turn an electric switch, or anything of that kind."

"Why doesn't she have one of those phosphorous things?" questioned Billy.

Marie laughed quietly.

"She did. I sent her one,—and she stood it just one night."

"Stood it!"

"Yes. She declared it gave her the creeps, and that she wouldn't have the spooky thing staring at her all night like that. So it's got to be something she can hear, and I'm going to tell her Mrs. Stetson's plan right away."

"Well, I'm sure I wish you would," cried that lady, with prompt interest; "and she'll like it, I'm sure. And tell her if she can hear a town clock strike, it's just the same, and even better; for there aren't any half-hours at all to think of there."

"I will—and I think it's lovely," declared Marie.

"Of course it's lovely," smiled Billy, rising; "but I fancy I'd better go and get ready to meet Mrs. Hartwell, or the 'lovely' thing will be telling me that it's half-past eleven!" And she tripped laughingly from the room.

Promptly at the appointed time John with Peggy drew up before the door, and Billy, muffled in furs, stepped into the car, which, with its protecting top and sides and glass wind-shield, was in its winter dress.

"Yes'm, 'tis a little chilly, Miss," said John, in answer to her greeting, as he tucked the heavy robes about her.

"Oh, well, I shall be very comfortable, I'm sure," smiled Billy. "Just don't drive too rapidly, specially coming home. I shall have to get a limousine, I think, when my ship comes in, John."

John's grizzled old face twitched. So evident were the words that were not spoken that Billy asked laughingly:

"Well, John, what is it?"

John reddened furiously.

"Nothing, Miss. I was only thinkin' that if you didn't 'tend ter haulin' in so many other folks's ships, yours might get in sooner."

"Why, John! Nonsense! I—I love to haul in other folks's ships," laughed the girl, embarrassedly.

"Yes, Miss; I know you do," grunted John.

Billy colored.

"No, no—that is, I mean—I don't do it—very much," she stammered.

John did not answer apparently; but Billy was sure she caught a low-muttered, indignant "much!" as he snapped the door shut and took his place at the wheel.

To herself she laughed softly. She thought she possessed the secret now of some of John's disapproving glances toward her humble guests of the summer before.



CHAPTER XII. SISTER KATE

At the station Mrs. Hartwell's train was found to be gratifyingly on time; and in due course Billy was extending a cordial welcome to a tall, handsome woman who carried herself with an unmistakable air of assured competence. Accompanying her was a little girl with big blue eyes and yellow curls.

"I am very glad to see you both," smiled Billy, holding out a friendly hand to Mrs. Hartwell, and stooping to kiss the round cheek of the little girl.

"Thank you, you are very kind," murmured the lady; "but—are you alone, Billy? Where are the boys?"

"Uncle William is out of town, and Cyril is rushed to death and sent his excuses. Bertram did mean to come, but he telephoned this morning that he couldn't, after all. I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you'll have to make the best of just me," condoled Billy. "They'll be out to the house this evening, of course—all but Uncle William. He doesn't return until to-morrow."

"Oh, doesn't he?" murmured the lady, reaching for her daughter's hand.

Billy looked down with a smile.

"And this is little Kate, I suppose," she said, "whom I haven't seen for such a long, long time. Let me see, you are how old now?"

"I'm eight. I've been eight six weeks."

Billy's eyes twinkled.

"And you don't remember me, I suppose."

The little girl shook her head.

"No; but I know who you are," she added, with shy eagerness. "You're going to be my Aunt Billy, and you're going to marry my Uncle William—I mean, my Uncle Bertram."

Billy's face changed color. Mrs. Hartwell gave a despairing gesture.

"Kate, my dear, I told you to be sure and remember that it was your Uncle Bertram now. You see," she added in a discouraged aside to Billy, "she can't seem to forget the first one. But then, what can you expect?" laughed Mrs. Hartwell, a little disagreeably. "Such abrupt changes from one brother to another are somewhat disconcerting, you know."

Billy bit her lip. For a moment she said nothing, then, a little constrainedly, she rejoined:

"Perhaps. Still—let us hope we have the right one, now."

Mrs. Hartwell raised her eyebrows.

"Well, my dear, I'm not so confident of that. My choice has been and always will be—William."

Billy bit her lip again. This time her brown eyes flashed a little.

"Is that so? But you see, after all, you aren't making the—the choice." Billy spoke lightly, gayly; and she ended with a bright little laugh, as if to hide any intended impertinence.

It was Mrs. Hartwell's turn to bite her lip—and she did it.

"So it seems," she rejoined frigidly, after the briefest of pauses.

It was not until they were on their way to Corey Hill some time later that Mrs. Hartwell turned with the question:

"Cyril is to be married in church, I suppose?"

"No. They both preferred a home wedding."

"Oh, what a pity! Church weddings are so attractive!"

"To those who like them," amended Billy in spite of herself.

"To every one, I think," corrected Mrs. Hartwell, positively.

Billy laughed. She was beginning to discern that it did not do much harm—nor much good—to disagree with her guest.

"It's in the evening, then, of course?" pursued Mrs. Hartwell.

"No; at noon."

"Oh, how could you let them?"

"But they preferred it, Mrs. Hartwell."

"What if they did?" retorted the lady, sharply. "Can't you do as you please in your own home? Evening weddings are so much prettier! We can't change now, of course, with the guests all invited. That is, I suppose you do have guests!"

Mrs. Hartwell's voice was aggrievedly despairing.

"Oh, yes," smiled Billy, demurely. "We have guests invited—and I'm afraid we can't change the time."

"No, of course not; but it's too bad. I conclude there are announcements only, as I got no cards.

"Announcements only," bowed Billy.

"I wish Cyril had consulted me, a little, about this affair."

Billy did not answer. She could not trust herself to speak just then. Cyril's words of two days before were in her ears: "Yes, and it will give Big Kate time to try to make your breakfast supper, and your roses pinks—or sunflowers."

In a moment Mrs. Hartwell spoke again.

"Of course a noon wedding is quite pretty if you darken the rooms and have lights—you're going to do that, I suppose?"

Billy shook her head slowly.

"I'm afraid not, Mrs. Hartwell. That isn't the plan, now."

"Not darken the rooms!" exclaimed Mrs. Hartwell. "Why, it won't—" She stopped suddenly, and fell back in her seat. The look of annoyed disappointment gave way to one of confident relief. "But then, that can be changed," she finished serenely.

Billy opened her lips, but she shut them without speaking. After a minute she opened them again.

"You might consult—Cyril—about that," she said in a quiet voice.

"Yes, I will," nodded Mrs. Hartwell, brightly. She was looking pleased and happy again. "I love weddings. Don't you? You can do so much with them!"

"Can you?" laughed Billy, irrepressibly.

"Yes. Cyril is happy, of course. Still, I can't imagine him in love with any woman."

"I think Marie can."

"I suppose so. I don't seem to remember her much; still, I think I saw her once or twice when I was on last June. Music teacher, wasn't she?"

"Yes. She is a very sweet girl."

"Hm-m; I suppose so. Still, I think 'twould have been better if Cyril could have selected some one that wasn't musical—say a more domestic wife. He's so terribly unpractical himself about household matters."

Billy gave a ringing laugh and stood up. The car had come to a stop before her own door.

"Do you? Just you wait till you see Marie's trousseau of—egg-beaters and cake tins," she chuckled.

Mrs. Hartwell looked blank.

"Whatever in the world do you mean, Billy?" she demanded fretfully, as she followed her hostess from the car. "I declare! aren't you ever going to grow beyond making those absurd remarks of yours?"

"Maybe—sometime," laughed Billy, as she took little Kate's hand and led the way up the steps.

Luncheon in the cozy dining-room at Hillside that day was not entirely a success. At least there were not present exactly the harmony and tranquillity that are conceded to be the best sauce for one's food. The wedding, of course, was the all-absorbing topic of conversation; and Billy, between Aunt Hannah's attempts to be polite, Marie's to be sweet-tempered, Mrs. Hartwell's to be dictatorial, and her own to be pacifying as well as firm, had a hard time of it. If it had not been for two or three diversions created by little Kate, the meal would have been, indeed, a dismal failure.

But little Kate—most of the time the personification of proper little-girlhood—had a disconcerting faculty of occasionally dropping a word here, or a question there, with startling effect. As, for instance, when she asked Billy "Who's going to boss your wedding?" and again when she calmly informed her mother that when she was married she was not going to have any wedding at all to bother with, anyhow. She was going to elope, and she should choose somebody's chauffeur, because he'd know how to go the farthest and fastest so her mother couldn't catch up with her and tell her how she ought to have done it.

After luncheon Aunt Hannah went up-stairs for rest and recuperation. Marie took little Kate and went for a brisk walk—for the same purpose. This left Billy alone with her guest.

"Perhaps you would like a nap, too, Mrs. Hartwell," suggested Billy, as they passed into the living-room. There was a curious note of almost hopefulness in her voice.

Mrs. Hartwell scorned naps, and she said so very emphatically. She said something else, too.

"Billy, why do you always call me 'Mrs. Hartwell' in that stiff, formal fashion? You used to call me 'Aunt Kate.'"

"But I was very young then." Billy's voice was troubled. Billy had been trying so hard for the last two hours to be the graciously cordial hostess to this woman—Bertram's sister.

"Very true. Then why not 'Kate' now?"

Billy hesitated. She was wondering why it seemed so hard to call Mrs. Hartwell "Kate."

"Of course," resumed the lady, "when you're Bertram's wife and my sister—"

"Why, of course," cried Billy, in a sudden flood of understanding. Curiously enough, she had never before thought of Mrs. Hartwell as her sister. "I shall be glad to call you 'Kate'—if you like."

"Thank you. I shall like it very much, Billy," nodded the other cordially. "Indeed, my dear, I'm very fond of you, and I was delighted to hear you were to be my sister. If only—it could have stayed William instead of Bertram."

"But it couldn't," smiled Billy. "It wasn't William—that I loved."

"But Bertram!—it's so absurd."

"Absurd!" The smile was gone now.

"Yes. Forgive me, Billy, but I was about as much surprised to hear of Bertram's engagement as I was of Cyril's."

Billy grew a little white.

"But Bertram was never an avowed—woman-hater, like Cyril, was he?"

"'Woman-hater'—dear me, no! He was a woman-lover, always. As if his eternal 'Face of a Girl' didn't prove that! Bertram has always loved women—to paint. But as for his ever taking them seriously—why, Billy, what's the matter?"

Billy had risen suddenly.

"If you'll excuse me, please, just a few minutes," Billy said very quietly. "I want to speak to Rosa in the kitchen. I'll be back—soon."

In the kitchen Billy spoke to Rosa—she wondered afterwards what she said. Certainly she did not stay in the kitchen long enough to say much. In her own room a minute later, with the door fast closed, she took from her table the photograph of Bertram and held it in her two hands, talking to it softly, but a little wildly.

"I didn't listen! I didn't stay! Do you hear? I came to you. She shall not say anything that will make trouble between you and me. I've suffered enough through her already! And she doesn't know—she didn't know before, and she doesn't now. She's only imagining. I will not not—not believe that you love me—just to paint. No matter what they say—all of them! I will not!"

Billy put the photograph back on the table then, and went down-stairs to her guest. She smiled brightly, though her face was a little pale.

"I wondered if perhaps you wouldn't like some music," she said pleasantly, going straight to the piano.

"Indeed I would!" agreed Mrs. Hartwell.

Billy sat down then and played—played as Mrs. Hartwell had never heard her play before.

"Why, Billy, you amaze me," she cried, when the pianist stopped and whirled about. "I had no idea you could play like that!"

Billy smiled enigmatically. Billy was thinking that Mrs. Hartwell would, indeed, have been surprised if she had known that in that playing were herself, the ride home, the luncheon, Bertram, and the girl—whom Bertram did not love only to paint!



CHAPTER XIII. CYRIL AND A WEDDING

The twelfth was a beautiful day. Clear, frosty air set the blood to tingling and the eyes to sparkling, even if it were not your wedding day; while if it were—

It was Marie Hawthorn's wedding day, and certainly her eyes sparkled and her blood tingled as she threw open the window of her room and breathed long and deep of the fresh morning air before going down to breakfast.

"They say 'Happy is the bride that the sun shines on,'" she whispered softly to an English sparrow that cocked his eye at her from a neighboring tree branch. "As if a bride wouldn't be happy, sun or no sun," she scoffed tenderly, as she turned to go down-stairs.

As it happens, however, tingling blood and sparkling eyes are a matter of more than weather, or even weddings, as was proved a little later when the telephone bell rang.

Kate answered the ring.

"Hullo, is that you, Kate?" called a despairing voice.

"Yes. Good morning, Bertram. Isn't this a fine day for the wedding?"

"Fine! Oh, yes, I suppose so, though I must confess I haven't noticed it—and you wouldn't, if you had a lunatic on your hands."

"A lunatic!"

"Yes. Maybe you have, though. Is Marie rampaging around the house like a wild creature, and asking ten questions and making twenty threats to the minute?"

"Certainly not! Don't be absurd, Bertram. What do you mean?"

"See here, Kate, that show comes off at twelve sharp, doesn't it?"

"Show, indeed!" retorted Kate, indignantly. "The wedding is at noon sharp—as the best man should know very well."

"All right; then tell Billy, please, to see that it is sharp, or I won't answer for the consequences."

"What do you mean? What is the matter?"

"Cyril. He's broken loose at last. I've been expecting it all along. I've simply marvelled at the meekness with which he has submitted himself to be tied up with white ribbons and topped with roses."

"Nonsense, Bertram!"

"Well, it amounts to that. Anyhow, he thinks it does, and he's wild. I wish you could have heard the thunderous performance on his piano with which he woke me up this morning. Billy says he plays everything—his past, present, and future. All is, if he was playing his future this morning, I pity the girl who's got to live it with him."

"Bertram!"

Bertram chuckled remorselessly.

"Well, I do. But I'll warrant he wasn't playing his future this morning. He was playing his present—the wedding. You see, he's just waked up to the fact that it'll be a perfect orgy of women and other confusion, and he doesn't like it. All the samee,{sic} I've had to assure him just fourteen times this morning that the ring, the license, the carriage, the minister's fee, and my sanity are all O. K. When he isn't asking questions he's making threats to snake the parson up there an hour ahead of time and be off with Marie before a soul comes."

"What an absurd idea!"

"Cyril doesn't think so. Indeed, Kate, I've had a hard struggle to convince him that the guests wouldn't think it the most delightful experience of their lives if they should come and find the ceremony over with and the bride gone."

"Well, you remind Cyril, please, that there are other people besides himself concerned in this wedding," observed Kate, icily.

"I have," purred Bertram, "and he says all right, let them have it, then. He's gone now to look up proxy marriages, I believe."

"Proxy marriages, indeed! Come, come, Bertram, I've got something to do this morning besides to stand here listening to your nonsense. See that you and Cyril get here on time—that's all!" And she hung up the receiver with an impatient jerk.

She turned to confront the startled eyes of the bride elect.

"What is it? Is anything wrong—with Cyril?" faltered Marie.

Kate laughed and raised her eyebrows slightly.

"Nothing but a little stage fright, my dear."

"Stage fright!"

"Yes. Bertram says he's trying to find some one to play his role, I believe, in the ceremony."

"Mrs. Hartwell!"

At the look of dismayed terror that came into Marie's face, Mrs. Hartwell laughed reassuringly.

"There, there, dear child, don't look so horror-stricken. There probably never was a man yet who wouldn't have fled from the wedding part of his marriage if he could; and you know how Cyril hates fuss and feathers. The wonder to me is that he's stood it as long as he has. I thought I saw it coming, last night at the rehearsal—and now I know I did."

Marie still looked distressed.

"But he never said—I thought—" She stopped helplessly.

"Of course he didn't, child. He never said anything but that he loved you, and he never thought anything but that you were going to be his. Men never do—till the wedding day. Then they never think of anything but a place to run," she finished laughingly, as she began to arrange on a stand the quantity of little white boxes waiting for her.

"But if he'd told me—in time, I wouldn't have had a thing—but the minister," faltered Marie.

"And when you think so much of a pretty wedding, too? Nonsense! It isn't good for a man, to give up to his whims like that!"

Marie's cheeks grew a deeper pink. Her nostrils dilated a little.

"It wouldn't be a 'whim,' Mrs. Hartwell, and I should be glad to give up," she said with decision.

Mrs. Hartwell laughed again, her amused eyes on Marie's face.

"Dear me, child! don't you know that if men had their way, they'd—well, if men married men there'd never be such a thing in the world as a shower bouquet or a piece of wedding cake!"

There was no reply. A little precipitately Marie turned and hurried away. A moment later she was laying a restraining hand on Billy, who was filling tall vases with superb long-stemmed roses in the kitchen.

"Billy, please," she panted, "couldn't we do without those? Couldn't we send them to some—some hospital?—and the wedding cake, too, and—"

"The wedding cake—to some hospital!"

"No, of course not—to the hospital. It would make them sick to eat it, wouldn't it?" That there was no shadow of a smile on Marie's face showed how desperate, indeed, was her state of mind. "I only meant that I didn't want them myself, nor the shower bouquet, nor the rooms darkened, nor little Kate as the flower girl—and would you mind very much if I asked you not to be my maid of honor?"

"Marie!"

Marie covered her face with her hands then and began to sob brokenly; so there was nothing for Billy to do but to take her into her arms with soothing little murmurs and pettings. By degrees, then, the whole story came out.

Billy almost laughed—but she almost cried, too. Then she said:

"Dearie, I don't believe Cyril feels or acts half so bad as Bertram and Kate make out, and, anyhow, if he did, it's too late now to—to send the wedding cake to the hospital, or make any other of the little changes you suggest." Billy's lips puckered into a half-smile, but her eyes were grave. "Besides, there are your music pupils trimming the living-room this minute with evergreen, there's little Kate making her flower-girl wreath, and Mrs. Hartwell stacking cake boxes in the hall, to say nothing of Rosa gloating over the best china in the dining-room, and Aunt Hannah putting purple bows into the new lace cap she's counting on wearing. Only think how disappointed they'd all be if I should say: 'Never mind—stop that. Marie's just going to have a minister. No fuss, no feathers!' Why, dearie, even the roses are hanging their heads for grief," she went on mistily, lifting with gentle fingers one of the full-petalled pink beauties near her. "Besides, there's your—guests."

"Oh, of course, I knew I couldn't—really," sighed Marie, as she turned to go up-stairs, all the light and joy gone from her face.

Billy, once assured that Marie was out of hearing, ran to the telephone.

Bertram answered.

"Bertram, tell Cyril I want to speak to him, please."

"All right, dear, but go easy. Better strike up your tuning fork to find his pitch to-day. You'll discover it's a high one, all right."

A moment later Cyril's tersely nervous "Good morning, Billy," came across the line.

Billy drew in her breath and cast a hurriedly apprehensive glance over her shoulder to make sure Marie was not near.

"Cyril," she called in a low voice, "if you care a shred for Marie, for heaven's sake call her up and tell her that you dote on pink roses, and pink ribbons, and pink breakfasts—and pink wedding cake!"

"But I don't."

"Oh, yes, you do—to-day! You would—if you could see Marie now."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing, only she overheard part of Bertram's nonsensical talk with Kate a little while ago, and she's ready to cast the last ravelling of white satin and conventionality behind her, and go with you to the justice of the peace."

"Sensible girl!"

"Yes, but she can't, you know, with fifty guests coming to the wedding, and twice as many more to the reception. Honestly, Cyril, she's broken-hearted. You must do something. She's—coming!" And the receiver clicked sharply into place.

Five minutes later Marie was called to the telephone. Dejectedly, wistful-eyed, she went. Just what were the words that hummed across the wire into the pink little ear of the bride-to-be, Billy never knew; but a Marie that was anything but wistful-eyed and dejected left the telephone a little later, and was heard very soon in the room above trilling merry snatches of a little song. Contentedly, then, Billy went back to her roses.

It was a pretty wedding, a very pretty wedding. Every one said that. The pink and green of the decorations, the soft lights (Kate had had her way about darkening the rooms), the pretty frocks and smiling faces of the guests all helped. Then there were the dainty flower girl, little Kate, the charming maid of honor, Billy, the stalwart, handsome best man, Bertram, to say nothing of the delicately beautiful bride, who looked like some fairy visitor from another world in the floating shimmer of her gossamer silk and tulle. There was, too, not quite unnoticed, the bridegroom; tall, of distinguished bearing, and with features that were clear cut and-to-day-rather pale.

Then came the reception—the "women and confusion" of Cyril's fears—followed by the going away of the bride and groom with its merry warfare of confetti and old shoes.

At four o'clock, however, with only William and Bertram remaining for guests, something like quiet descended at last on the little house.

"Well, it's over," sighed Billy, dropping exhaustedly into a big chair in the living-room.

"And well over," supplemented Aunt Hannah, covering her white shawl with a warmer blue one.

"Yes, I think it was," nodded Kate. "It was really a very pretty wedding."

"With your help, Kate—eh?" teased William.

"Well, I flatter myself I did do some good," bridled Kate, as she turned to help little Kate take the flower wreath from her head.

"Even if you did hurry into my room and scare me into conniption fits telling me I'd be late," laughed Billy.

Kate tossed her head.

"Well, how was I to know that Aunt Hannah's clock only meant half-past eleven when it struck twelve?" she retorted.

Everybody laughed.

"Oh, well, it was a pretty wedding," declared William, with a long sigh.

"It'll do—for an understudy," said Bertram softly, for Billy's ears alone.

Only the added color and the swift glance showed that Billy heard, for when she spoke she said:

"And didn't Cyril behave beautifully? 'Most every time I looked at him he was talking to some woman."

"Oh, no, he wasn't—begging your pardon, my dear," objected Bertram. "I watched him, too, even more closely than you did, and it was always the woman who was talking to Cyril!"

Billy laughed.

"Well, anyhow," she maintained, "he listened. He didn't run away."

"As if a bridegroom could!" cried Kate.

"I'm going to," avowed Bertram, his nose in the air.

"Pooh!" scoffed Kate. Then she added eagerly: "You must be married in church, Billy, and in the evening."

Bertram's nose came suddenly out of the air. His eyes met Kate's squarely.

"Billy hasn't decided yet how she does want to be married," he said with unnecessary emphasis.

Billy laughed and interposed a quick change of subject.

"I think people had a pretty good time, too, for a wedding, don't you?" she asked. "I was sorry Mary Jane couldn't be here—'twould have been such a good chance for him to meet our friends."

"As—Mary Jane?" asked Bertram, a little stiffly.

"Really, my dear," murmured Aunt Hannah, "I think it would be more respectful to call him by his name."

"By the way, what is his name?" questioned William.

"That's what we don't know," laughed Billy.

"Well, you know the 'Arkwright,' don't you?" put in Bertram. Bertram, too, laughed, but it was a little forcedly. "I suppose if you knew his name was 'Methuselah,' you wouldn't call him that—yet, would you?"

Billy clapped her hands, and threw a merry glance at Aunt Hannah.

"There! we never thought of 'Methuselah,'" she gurgled gleefully. "Maybe it is 'Methuselah,' now—'Methuselah John'! You see, he's told us to try to guess it," she explained, turning to William; "but, honestly, I don't believe, whatever it is, I'll ever think of him as anything but 'Mary Jane.'"

"Well, as far as I can judge, he has nobody but himself to thank for that, so he can't do any complaining," smiled William, as he rose to go. "Well, how about it, Bertram? I suppose you're going to stay a while to comfort the lonely—eh, boy?"

"Of course he is—and so are you, too, Uncle William," spoke up Billy, with affectionate cordiality. "As if I'd let you go back to a forlorn dinner in that great house to-night! Indeed, no!"

William smiled, hesitated, and sat down.

"Well, of course—" he began.

"Yes, of course," finished Billy, quickly. "I'll telephone Pete that you'll stay here—both of you."

It was at this point that little Kate, who had been turning interested eyes from one brother to the other, interposed a clear, high-pitched question.

"Uncle William, didn't you want to marry my going-to-be-Aunt Billy?"

"Kate!" gasped her mother, "didn't I tell you—" Her voice trailed into an incoherent murmur of remonstrance.

Billy blushed. Bertram said a low word under his breath. Aunt Hannah's "Oh, my grief and conscience!" was almost a groan.

William laughed lightly.

"Well, my little lady," he suggested, "let us put it the other way and say that quite probably she didn't want to marry me."

"Does she want to marry Uncle Bertram?" "Kate!" gasped Billy and Mrs. Hartwell together this time, fearful of what might be coming next.

"We'll hope so," nodded Uncle William, speaking in a cheerfully matter-of-fact voice, intended to discourage curiosity.

The little girl frowned and pondered. Her elders cast about in their minds for a speedy change of subject; but their somewhat scattered wits were not quick enough. It was little Kate who spoke next.

"Uncle William, would she have got Uncle Cyril if Aunt Marie hadn't nabbed him first?"

"Kate!" The word was a chorus of dismay this time.

Mrs. Hartwell struggled to her feet.

"Come, come, Kate, we must go up-stairs—to bed," she stammered.

The little girl drew back indignantly.

"To bed? Why, mama, I haven't had my supper yet!"

"What? Oh, sure enough—the lights! I forgot. Well, then, come up—to change your dress," finished Mrs. Hartwell, as with a despairing look and gesture she led her young daughter from the room.



CHAPTER XIV. M. J. MAKES ANOTHER MOVE

Billy came down-stairs on the thirteenth of December to find everywhere the peculiar flatness that always follows a day which for weeks has been the focus of one's aims and thoughts and labor.

"It's just as if everything had stopped at Marie's wedding, and there wasn't anything more to do," she complained to Aunt Hannah at the breakfast table. "Everything seems so—queer!"

"It won't—long, dear," smiled Aunt Hannah, tranquilly, as she buttered her roll, "specially after Bertram comes back. How long does he stay in New York?"

"Only three days; but I'm just sure it's going to seem three weeks, now," sighed Billy. "But he simply had to go—else he wouldn't have gone."

"I've no doubt of it," observed Aunt Hannah. And at the meaning emphasis of her words, Billy laughed a little. After a minute she said aggrievedly:

"I had supposed that I could at least have a sort of 'after the ball' celebration this morning picking up and straightening things around. But John and Rosa have done it all. There isn't so much as a rose leaf anywhere on the floor. Of course most of the flowers went to the hospital last night, anyway. As for Marie's room—it looks as spick-and-span as if it had never seen a scrap of ribbon or an inch of tulle."

"But—the wedding presents?"

"All carried down to the kitchen and half packed now, ready to go over to the new home. John says he'll take them over in Peggy this afternoon, after he takes Mrs. Hartwell's trunk to Uncle William's."

"Well, you can at least go over to the apartment and work," suggested Aunt Hannah, hopefully.

"Humph! Can I?" scoffed Billy. "As if I could—when Marie left strict orders that not one thing was to be touched till she got here. They arranged everything but the presents before the wedding, anyway; and Marie wants to fix those herself after she gets back. Mercy! Aunt Hannah, if I should so much as move a plate one inch in the china closet, Marie would know it—and change it when she got home," laughed Billy, as she rose from the table. "No, I can't go to work over there."

"But there's your music, my dear. You said you were going to write some new songs after the wedding."

"I was," sighed Billy, walking to the window, and looking listlessly at the bare, brown world outside; "but I can't write songs—when there aren't any songs in my head to write."

"No, of course not; but they'll come, dear, in time. You're tired, now," soothed Aunt Hannah, as she turned to leave the room.

"It's the reaction, of course," murmured Aunt Hannah to herself, on the way up-stairs. "She's had the whole thing on her hands—dear child!"

A few minutes later, from the living-room, came a plaintive little minor melody. Billy was at the piano.

Kate and little Kate had, the night before, gone home with William. It had been a sudden decision, brought about by the realization that Bertram's trip to New York would leave William alone. Her trunk was to be carried there to-day, and she would leave for home from there, at the end of a two or three days' visit.

It began to snow at twelve o'clock. All the morning the sky had been gray and threatening; and the threats took visible shape at noon in myriads of white snow feathers that filled the air to the blinding point, and turned the brown, bare world into a thing of fairylike beauty. Billy, however, with a rare frown upon her face, looked out upon it with disapproving eyes.

"I was going in town—and I believe I'll go now," she cried.

"Don't, dear, please don't," begged Aunt Hannah. "See, the flakes are smaller now, and the wind is coming up. We're in for a blizzard—I'm sure we are. And you know you have some cold, already."

"All right," sighed Billy. "Then it's me for the knitting work and the fire, I suppose," she finished, with a whimsicality that did not hide the wistful disappointment of her voice.

She was not knitting, however, she was sewing with Aunt Hannah when at four o'clock Rosa brought in the card.

Billy glanced at the name, then sprang to her feet with a glad little cry.

"It's Mary Jane!" she exclaimed, as Rosa disappeared. "Now wasn't he a dear to think to come to-day? You'll be down, won't you?"

Aunt Hannah smiled even while she frowned.

"Oh, Billy!" she remonstrated. "Yes, I'll come down, of course, a little later, and I'm glad Mr. Arkwright came," she said with reproving emphasis.

Billy laughed and threw a mischievous glance over her shoulder.

"All right," she nodded. "I'll go and tell Mr. Arkwright you'll be down directly."

In the living-room Billy greeted her visitor with a frankly cordial hand.

"How did you know, Mr. Arkwright, that I was feeling specially restless and lonesome to-day?" she demanded.

A glad light sprang to the man's dark eyes.

"I didn't know it," he rejoined. "I only knew that I was specially restless and lonesome myself."

Arkwright's voice was not quite steady. The unmistakable friendliness in the girl's words and manner had sent a quick throb of joy to his heart. Her evident delight in his coming had filled him with rapture. He could not know that it was only the chill of the snowstorm that had given warmth to her handclasp, the dreariness of the day that had made her greeting so cordial, the loneliness of a maiden whose lover is away that had made his presence so welcome.

"Well, I'm glad you came, anyway," sighed Billy, contentedly; "though I suppose I ought to be sorry that you were lonesome—but I'm afraid I'm not, for now you'll know just how I felt, so you won't mind if I'm a little wild and erratic. You see, the tension has snapped," she added laughingly, as she seated herself.

"Tension?"

"The wedding, you know. For so many weeks we've been seeing just December twelfth, that we'd apparently forgotten all about the thirteenth that came after it; so when I got up this morning I felt just as you do when the clock has stopped ticking. But it was a lovely wedding, Mr. Arkwright. I'm sorry you could not be here."

"Thank you; so am I—though usually, I will confess, I'm not much good at attending 'functions' and meeting strangers. As perhaps you've guessed, Miss Neilson, I'm not particularly a society chap."

"Of course you aren't! People who are doing things—real things—seldom are. But we aren't the society kind ourselves, you know—not the capital S kind. We like sociability, which is vastly different from liking Society. Oh, we have friends, to be sure, who dote on 'pink teas and purple pageants,' as Cyril calls them; and we even go ourselves sometimes. But if you had been here yesterday, Mr. Arkwright, you'd have met lots like yourself, men and women who are doing things: singing, playing, painting, illustrating, writing. Why, we even had a poet, sir—only he didn't have long hair, so he didn't look the part a bit," she finished laughingly.

"Is long hair—necessary—for poets?" Arkwright's smile was quizzical.

"Dear me, no; not now. But it used to be, didn't it? And for painters, too. But now they look just like—folks."

Arkwright laughed.

"It isn't possible that you are sighing for the velvet coats and flowing ties of the past, is it, Miss Neilson?"

"I'm afraid it is," dimpled Billy. "I love velvet coats and flowing ties!"

"May singers wear them? I shall don them at once, anyhow, at a venture," declared the man, promptly.

Billy smiled and shook her head.

"I don't think you will. You all like your horrid fuzzy tweeds and worsteds too well!"

"You speak with feeling. One would almost suspect that you already had tried to bring about a reform—and failed. Perhaps Mr. Cyril, now, or Mr. Bertram—" Arkwright stopped with a whimsical smile.

Billy flushed a little. As it happened, she had, indeed, had a merry tilt with Bertram on that very subject, and he had laughingly promised that his wedding present to her would be a velvet house coat for himself. It was on the point of Billy's tongue now to say this to Arkwright; but another glance at the provoking smile on his lips drove the words back in angry confusion. For the second time, in the presence of this man, Billy found herself unable to refer to her engagement to Bertram Henshaw—though this time she did not in the least doubt that Arkwright already knew of it.

With a little gesture of playful scorn she rose and went to the piano.

"Come, let us try some duets," she suggested. "That's lots nicer than quarrelling over velvet coats; and Aunt Hannah will be down presently to hear us sing."

Before she had ceased speaking, Arkwright was at her side with an exclamation of eager acquiescence.

It was after the second duet that Arkwright asked, a little diffidently.

"Have you written any new songs lately?"

"No."

"You're going to?"

"Perhaps—if I find one to write."

"You mean—you have no words?"

"Yes—and no. I have some words, both of my own and other people's; but I haven't found in any one of them, yet—a melody."

Arkwright hesitated. His right hand went almost to his inner coat pocket—then fell back at his side. The next moment he picked up a sheet of music.

"Are you too tired to try this?" he asked.

A puzzled frown appeared on Billy's face.

"Why, no, but—"

"Well, children, I've come down to hear the music," announced Aunt Hannah, smilingly, from the doorway; "only—Billy, will you run up and get my pink shawl, too? This room is colder than I thought, and there's only the white one down here."

"Of course," cried Billy, rising at once. "You shall have a dozen shawls, if you like," she laughed, as she left the room.

What a cozy time it was—the hour that followed, after Billy returned with the pink shawl! Outside, the wind howled at the windows and flung the snow against the glass in sleety crashes. Inside, the man and the girl sang duets until they were tired; then, with Aunt Hannah, they feasted royally on the buttered toast, tea, and frosted cakes that Rosa served on a little table before the roaring fire. It was then that Arkwright talked of himself, telling them something of his studies, and of the life he was living.

"After all, you see there's just this difference between my friends and yours," he said, at last. "Your friends are doing things. They've succeeded. Mine haven't, yet—they're only trying."

"But they will succeed," cried Billy.

"Some of them," amended the man.

"Not—all of them?" Billy looked a little troubled.

Arkwright shook his head slowly.

"No. They couldn't—all of them, you know. Some haven't the talent, some haven't the perseverance, and some haven't the money."

"But all that seems such a pity-when they've tried," grieved Billy.

"It is a pity, Miss Neilson. Disappointed hopes are always a pity, aren't they?"

"Y-yes," sighed the girl. "But—if there were only something one could do to—help!"

Arkwright's eyes grew deep with feeling, but his voice, when he spoke, was purposely light.

"I'm afraid that would be quite too big a contract for even your generosity, Miss Neilson—to mend all the broken hopes in the world," he prophesied.

"I have known great good to come from great disappointments," remarked Aunt Hannah, a bit didactically.

"So have I," laughed Arkwright, still determined to drive the troubled shadow from the face he was watching so intently. "For instance: a fellow I know was feeling all cut up last Friday because he was just too late to get into Symphony Hall on the twenty-five-cent admission. Half an hour afterwards his disappointment was turned to joy—a friend who had an orchestra chair couldn't use his ticket that day, and so handed it over to him."

Billy turned interestedly.

"What are those twenty-five-cent tickets to the Symphony?"

"Then—you don't know?"

"Not exactly. I've heard of them, in a vague fashion."

"Then you've missed one of the sights of Boston if you haven't ever seen that long line of patient waiters at the door of Symphony Hall of a Friday morning."

"Morning! But the concert isn't till afternoon!"

"No, but the waiting is," retorted Arkwright. "You see, those admissions are limited—five hundred and five, I believe—and they're rush seats, at that. First come, first served; and if you're too late you aren't served at all. So the first arrival comes bright and early. I've heard that he has been known to come at peep of day when there's a Paderewski or a Melba for a drawing card. But I've got my doubts of that. Anyhow, I never saw them there much before half-past eight. But many's the cold, stormy day I've seen those steps in front of the Hall packed for hours, and a long line reaching away up the avenue."

Billy's eyes widened.

"And they'll stand all that time and wait?"

"To be sure they will. You see, each pays twenty-five cents at the door, until the limit is reached, then the rest are turned away. Naturally they don't want to be turned away, so they try to get there early enough to be among the fortunate five hundred and five. Besides, the earlier you are, the better seat you are likely to get."

"But only think of standing all that time!"

"Oh, they bring camp chairs, sometimes, I've heard, and then there are the steps. You don't know what a really fine seat a stone step is—if you have a big enough bundle of newspapers to cushion it with! They bring their luncheons, too, with books, papers, and knitting work for fine days, I've been told—some of them. All the comforts of home, you see," smiled Arkwright.

"Why, how—how dreadful!" stammered Billy.

"Oh, but they don't think it's dreadful at all," corrected Arkwright, quickly. "For twenty-five cents they can hear all that you hear down in your orchestra chair, for which you've paid so high a premium."

"But who—who are they? Where do they come from? Who would go and stand hours like that to get a twenty-five-cent seat?" questioned Billy.

"Who are they? Anybody, everybody, from anywhere? everywhere; people who have the music hunger but not the money to satisfy it," he rejoined. "Students, teachers, a little milliner from South Boston, a little dressmaker from Chelsea, a housewife from Cambridge, a stranger from the uttermost parts of the earth; maybe a widow who used to sit down-stairs, or a professor who has seen better days. Really to know that line, you should see it for yourself, Miss Neilson," smiled Arkwright, as he reluctantly rose to go. "Some Friday, however, before you take your seat, just glance up at that packed top balcony and judge by the faces you see there whether their owners think they're getting their twenty-five-cents' worth, or not."

"I will," nodded Billy, with a smile; but the smile came from her lips only, not her eyes: Billy was wishing, at that moment, that she owned the whole of Symphony Hall—to give away. But that was like Billy. When she was seven years old she had proposed to her Aunt Ella that they take all the thirty-five orphans from the Hampden Falls Orphan Asylum to live with them, so that little Sallie Cook and the other orphans might have ice cream every day, if they wanted it. Since then Billy had always been trying—in a way—to give ice cream to some one who wanted it.

Arkwright was almost at the door when he turned abruptly. His face was an abashed red. From his pocket he had taken a small folded paper.

"Do you suppose—in this—you might find—that melody?" he stammered in a low voice. The next moment he was gone, having left in Billy's fingers a paper upon which was written in a clear-cut, masculine hand six four-line stanzas.

Billy read them at once, hurriedly, then more carefully.

"Why, they're beautiful," she breathed, "just beautiful! Where did he get them, I wonder? It's a love song—and such a pretty one! I believe there is a melody in it," she exulted, pausing to hum a line or two. "There is—I know there is; and I'll write it—for Bertram," she finished, crossing joyously to the piano.

Half-way down Corey Hill at that moment, Arkwright was buffeting the wind and snow. He, too, was thinking joyously of those stanzas—joyously, yet at the same time fearfully. Arkwright himself had written those lines—though not for Bertram.