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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Miss Billy, by Eleanor H. Porter
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Miss Billy
+
+Author: Eleanor H. Porter
+
+Release Date: June 3, 2006 [EBook #3266]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS BILLY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Donald Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+MISS BILLY
+
+
+by Eleanor H. Porter
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I.      BILLY WRITES A LETTER
+
+II.     "THE STRATA"
+
+III.    THE STRATA--WHEN THE LETTER COMES
+
+IV.     BILLY SENDS A TELEGRAM
+
+V.      GETTING READY FOR BILLY
+
+VI.     THE COMING OF BILLY
+
+VII.    INTRODUCING SPUNK
+
+VIII.   THE ROOM--AND BILLY
+
+IX.     A FAMILY CONCLAVE
+
+X.      AUNT HANNAH
+
+XI.     BERTRAM HAS VISITORS
+
+XII.    CYRIL TAKES HIS TURN
+
+XIII.   A SURPRISE ALL AROUND
+
+XIV.    AUNT HANNAH SPEAKS HER MIND
+
+XV.     WHAT BERTRAM CALLS "THE LIMIT"
+
+XVI.    KATE TAKES A HAND
+
+XVII.   A PINK-RIBBON TRAIL
+
+XVIII.  BILLY WRITES ANOTHER LETTER
+
+XIX.    SEEING BILLY OFF
+
+XX.     BILLY, THE MYTH
+
+XXI.    BILLY, THE REALITY
+
+XXII.   HUGH CALDERWELL
+
+XXIII.  BERTRAM DOES SOME QUESTIONING
+
+XXIV.   CYRIL, THE ENIGMA
+
+XXV.    THE OLD ROOM--AND BILLY
+
+XXVI.   "MUSIC HATH CHARMS"
+
+XXVII.  MARIE, WHO LONGS TO MAKE PUDDINGS
+
+XXVIII. "I'M GOING TO WIN"
+
+XXIX.   "I'M NOT GOING TO MARRY"
+
+XXX.    MARIE FINDS A FRIEND
+
+XXXI.   THE ENGAGEMENT OF ONE
+
+XXXII.  CYRIL HAS SOMETHING TO SAY
+
+XXXIII. WILLIAM IS WORRIED
+
+XXXIV.  CLASS DAY
+
+XXXV.   SISTER KATE AGAIN
+
+XXXVI.  WILLIAM MEETS WITH A SURPRISE
+
+XXXVII. "WILLIAM'S BROTHER"
+
+XXXVIII. THE ENGAGEMENT OF TWO
+
+XXXIX.  A LITTLE PIECE OF PAPER
+
+XL.     WILLIAM PAYS A VISIT
+
+XLI.    THE CROOKED MADE STRAIGHT
+
+XLII.   THE "END OF THE STORY"
+
+
+
+
+MISS BILLY
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+BILLY WRITES A LETTER
+
+
+
+Billy Neilson was eighteen years old when the aunt, who had brought her
+up from babyhood, died. Miss Benton's death left Billy quite alone
+in the world--alone, and peculiarly forlorn. To Mr. James Harding,
+of Harding & Harding, who had charge of Billy's not inconsiderable
+property, the girl poured out her heart in all its loneliness two days
+after the funeral.
+
+"You see, Mr. Harding, there isn't any one--not any one who--cares," she
+choked.
+
+"Tut, tut, my child, it's not so bad as that, surely," remonstrated the
+old man, gently. "Why, I--I care."
+
+Billy smiled through tear-wet eyes.
+
+"But I can't LIVE with you," she said.
+
+"I'm not so sure of that, either," retorted the man. "I'm thinking that
+Letty and Ann would LIKE to have you with us."
+
+The girl laughed now outright. She was thinking of Miss Letty, who had
+"nerves," and of Miss Ann, who had a "heart"; and she pictured her own
+young, breezy, healthy self attempting to conform to the hushed and
+shaded thing that life was, within Lawyer Harding's home.
+
+"Thank you, but I'm sure they wouldn't," she objected. "You don't know
+how noisy I am."
+
+The lawyer stirred restlessly and pondered.
+
+"But, surely, my dear, isn't there some relative, somewhere?" he
+demanded. "How about your mother's people?"
+
+Billy shook her head. Her eyes filled again with tears.
+
+"There was only Aunt Ella, ever, that I knew anything about. She and
+mother were the only children there were, and mother died when I was a
+year old, you know."
+
+"But your father's people?"
+
+"It's even worse there. He was an only child and an orphan when mother
+married him. He died when I was but six months old. After that there was
+only mother and Aunt Ella, then Aunt Ella alone; and now--no one."
+
+"And you know nothing of your father's people?"
+
+"Nothing; that is--almost nothing."
+
+"Then there is some one?"
+
+Billy smiled. A deeper pink showed in her cheeks.
+
+"Why, there's one--a man but he isn't really father's people, anyway.
+But I--I have been tempted to write to him."
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+"The one I'm named for. He was father's boyhood chum. You see that's why
+I'm 'Billy' instead of being a proper 'Susie,' or 'Bessie,' or 'Sally
+Jane.' Father had made up his mind to name his baby 'William' after his
+chum, and when I came, Aunt Ella said, he was quite broken-hearted until
+somebody hit upon the idea of naming me Billy.' Then he was content, for
+it seems that he always called his chum 'Billy' anyhow. And so--'Billy'
+I am to-day."
+
+"Do you know this man?"
+
+"No. You see father died, and mother and Aunt Ella knew him only very
+slightly. Mother knew his wife, though, Aunt Ella said, and SHE was
+lovely."
+
+"Hm--; well, we might look them up, perhaps. You know his address?"
+
+"Oh, yes unless he's moved. We've always kept that. Aunt Ella used to
+say sometimes that she was going to write to him some day about me, you
+know."
+
+"What's his name?"
+
+"William Henshaw. He lives in Boston."
+
+Lawyer Harding snatched off his glasses, and leaned forward in his
+chair.
+
+"William Henshaw! Not the Beacon Street Henshaws!" he cried.
+
+It was Billy's turn to be excited. She, too, leaned forward eagerly.
+
+"Oh, do you know him? That's lovely! And his address IS Beacon Street! I
+know because I saw it only to-day. You see, I HAVE been tempted to write
+him."
+
+"Write him? Of course you'll write him," cried the lawyer. "And we don't
+need to do much 'looking up' there, child. I've known the family for
+years, and this William was a college mate of my boy's. Nice fellow,
+too. I've heard Ned speak of him. There were three sons, William, and
+two others much younger than he. I've forgotten their names."
+
+"Then you do know him! I'm so glad," exclaimed Billy. "You see, he never
+seemed to me quite real."
+
+"I know about him," corrected the lawyer, smilingly, "though I'll
+confess I've rather lost track of him lately. Ned will know. I'll ask
+Ned. Now go home, my dear, and dry those pretty eyes of yours. Or,
+better still, come home with me to tea. I--I'll telephone up to the
+house." And he rose stiffly and went into the inner office.
+
+Some minutes passed before he came back, red of face, and plainly
+distressed.
+
+"My dear child, I--I'm sorry, but--but I'll have to take back that
+invitation," he blurted out miserably. "My sisters are--are not well
+this afternoon. Ann has been having a turn with her heart--you know
+Ann's heart is--is bad; and Letty--Letty is always nervous at such
+times--very nervous. Er--I'm so sorry! But you'll--excuse it?"
+
+"Indeed I will," smiled Billy, "and thank you just the same; only"--her
+eyes twinkled mischievously--"you don't mind if I do say that it IS
+lucky that we hadn't gone on planning to have me live with them, Mr.
+Harding!"
+
+"Eh? Well--er, I think your plan about the Henshaws is very good,"
+he interposed hurriedly. "I'll speak to Ned--I'll speak to Ned," he
+finished, as he ceremoniously bowed the girl from the office.
+
+James Harding kept his word, and spoke to his son that night; but there
+was little, after all, that Ned could tell him. Yes, he remembered Billy
+Henshaw well, but he had not heard of him for years, since Henshaw's
+marriage, in fact. He must be forty years old, Ned said; but he was a
+fine fellow, an exceptionally fine fellow, and would be sure to deal
+kindly and wisely by his little orphan namesake; of that Ned was very
+sure.
+
+"That's good. I'll write him," declared Mr. James Harding. "I'll write
+him tomorrow."
+
+He did write--but not so soon as Billy wrote; for even as he spoke,
+Billy, in her lonely little room at the other end of the town, was
+laying bare all her homesickness in four long pages to "Dear Uncle
+William."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+"THE STRATA"
+
+
+Bertram Henshaw called the Beacon Street home "The Strata." This annoyed
+Cyril, and even William, not a little; though they reflected that, after
+all, it was "only Bertram." For the whole of Bertram's twenty-four years
+of life it had been like this--"It's only Bertram," had been at once the
+curse and the salvation of his existence.
+
+In this particular case, however, Bertram's vagary of fancy had some
+excuse. The Beacon Street house, the home of the three brothers, was a
+"Strata."
+
+"You see, it's like this," Bertram would explain airily to some new
+acquaintance who expressed surprise at the name; "if I could slice off
+the front of the house like a loaf of cake, you'd understand it better.
+But just suppose that old Bunker Hill should suddenly spout fire and
+brimstone and bury us under tons of ashes--only fancy the condition of
+mind of those future archaeologists when they struck our house after
+their months of digging!
+
+"What would they find? Listen. First: stratum number one, the top floor;
+that's Cyril's, you know. They'd note the bare floors, the sparse but
+heavy furniture, the piano, the violin, the flute, the book-lined walls,
+and the absence of every sort of curtain, cushion, or knickknack. 'Here
+lived a plain man,' they'd say; 'a scholar, a musician, stern, unloved
+and unloving; a monk.'
+
+"And what next? They'd strike William's stratum next, the third floor.
+Imagine it! You know William as a State Street broker, well-off,
+a widower, tall, angular, slow of speech, a little bald, very much
+nearsighted, and the owner of the kindest heart in the world. But really
+to know William, you must know his rooms. William collects things. He
+has always collected things--and he's saved every one of them. There's a
+tradition that at the age of one year he crept into the house with four
+small round white stones. Anyhow, if he did, he's got them now. Rest
+assured of that--and he's forty this year. Miniatures, carved ivories,
+bugs, moths, porcelains, jades, stamps, postcards, spoons, baggage tags,
+theatre programs, playing-cards--there isn't anything that he doesn't
+collect. He's on teapots, now. Imagine it--William and teapots! And
+they're all there in his rooms--one glorious mass of confusion. Just
+fancy those archaeologists trying to make their 'monk' live there!
+
+"But when they reach me, my stratum, they'll have a worse time yet. You
+see, _I_ like cushions and comfort, and I have them everywhere. And I
+like--well, I like lots of things. My rooms don't belong to that monk,
+not a little bit. And so you see," Bertram would finish merrily, "that's
+why I call it all 'The Strata.'"
+
+And "The Strata" it was to all the Henshaws' friends, and even to
+William and Cyril themselves, in spite of their objection to the term.
+
+From babyhood the Henshaw boys had lived in the handsome, roomy house,
+facing the Public Garden. It had been their father's boyhood home, as
+well, and he and his wife had died there, soon after Kate, the only
+daughter, had married. At the age of twenty-two, William Henshaw, the
+eldest son, had brought his bride to the house, and together they had
+striven to make a home for the two younger orphan boys, Cyril, twelve,
+and Bertram, six. But Mrs. William, after a short five years of married
+life, had died; and since then, the house had known almost nothing of a
+woman's touch or care.
+
+Little by little as the years passed, the house and its inmates had
+fallen into what had given Bertram his excuse for the name. Cyril,
+thirty years old now, dignified, reserved, averse to cats, dogs, women,
+and confusion, had early taken himself and his music to the peace
+and exclusiveness of the fourth floor. Below him, William had long
+discouraged any meddling with his precious chaos of possessions, and had
+finally come to spend nearly all his spare time among them. This left
+Bertram to undisputed ownership of the second floor, and right royally
+did he hold sway there with his paints and brushes and easels, his
+old armor, rich hangings, rugs, and cushions, and everywhere his
+specialty--his "Face of a Girl." From canvas, plaque, and panel they
+looked out--those girlish faces: winsome, wilful, pert, demure, merry,
+sad, beautiful, even almost ugly--they were all there; and they were
+growing famous, too. The world of art was beginning to take notice, and
+to adjust its spectacles for a more critical glance. This "Face of a
+Girl" by Henshaw bade fair to be worth while.
+
+Below Bertram's cheery second floor were the dim old library and
+drawing-rooms, silent, stately, and almost never used; and below them
+were the dining-room and the kitchen. Here ruled Dong Ling, the Chinese
+cook, and Pete.
+
+Pete was--indeed, it is hard telling what Pete was. He said he was the
+butler; and he looked the part when he answered the bell at the great
+front door. But at other times, when he swept a room, or dusted Master
+William's curios, he looked--like nothing so much as what he was: a
+fussy, faithful old man, who expected to die in the service he had
+entered fifty years before as a lad.
+
+Thus in all the Beacon Street house, there had not for years been the
+touch of a woman's hand. Even Kate, the married sister, had long since
+given up trying to instruct Dong Ling or to chide Pete, though she still
+walked across the Garden from her Commonwealth Avenue home and tripped
+up the stairs to call in turn upon her brothers, Bertram, William, and
+Cyril.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE STRATA--WHEN THE LETTER COMES
+
+
+It was on the six o'clock delivery that William Henshaw received the
+letter from his namesake, Billy. To say the least, the letter was a
+great shock to him. He had not quite forgotten Billy's father, who had
+died so long ago, it is true, but he had forgotten Billy, entirely. Even
+as he looked at the disconcerting epistle with its round, neatly formed
+letters, he had great difficulty in ferreting out the particular niche
+in his memory which contained the fact that Walter Neilson had had a
+child, and had named it for him.
+
+And this child, this "Billy," this unknown progeny of an all but
+forgotten boyhood friend, was asking a home, and with him! Impossible!
+And William Henshaw peered at the letter as if, at this second reading,
+its message could not be so monstrous.
+
+"Well, old man, what's up?" It was Bertram's amazed voice from the hall
+doorway; and indeed, William Henshaw, red-faced and plainly trembling,
+seated on the lowest step of the stairway, and gazing, wild-eyed, at the
+letter in his hand, was somewhat of an amazing sight. "What IS up?"
+
+"What's up!" groaned William, starting to his feet, and waving the
+letter frantically in the air. "What's up! Young man, do you want us to
+take in a child to board?--a CHILD?" he repeated in slow horror.
+
+"Well, hardly," laughed the other. "Er, perhaps Cyril might like it,
+though; eh?"
+
+"Come, come, Bertram, be sensible for once," pleaded his brother,
+nervously. "This is serious, really serious, I tell you!"
+
+"What is serious?" demanded Cyril, coming down the stairway. "Can't it
+wait? Pete has already sounded the gong twice for dinner."
+
+William made a despairing gesture.
+
+"Well, come," he groaned. "I'll tell you at the table.... It seems I've
+got a namesake," he resumed in a shaking voice, a few moments later;
+"Walter Neilson's child."
+
+"And who's Walter Neilson?" asked Bertram.
+
+"A boyhood friend. You wouldn't remember him. This letter is from his
+child."
+
+"Well, let's hear it. Go ahead. I fancy we can stand the--LETTER; eh,
+Cyril?"
+
+Cyril frowned. Cyril did not know, perhaps, how often he frowned at
+Bertram.
+
+The eldest brother wet his lips. His hand shook as he picked up the
+letter.
+
+"It--it's so absurd," he muttered. Then he cleared his throat and read
+the letter aloud.
+
+
+"DEAR UNCLE WILLIAM: Do you mind my calling you that? You see I want
+SOME one, and there isn't any one now. You are the nearest I've got.
+Maybe you've forgotten, but I'm named for you. Walter Neilson was my
+father, you know. My Aunt Ella has just died.
+
+"Would you mind very much if I came to live with you? That is, between
+times--I'm going to college, of course, and after that I'm going to
+be--well, I haven't decided that part yet. I think I'll consult you. You
+may have some preference, you know. You can be thinking it up until I
+come.
+
+"There! Maybe I ought not to have said that, for perhaps you won't want
+me to come. I AM noisy, I'll own, but not so I think you'll mind it much
+unless some of you have 'nerves' or a 'heart.' You see, Miss Letty and
+Miss Ann--they're Mr. Harding's sisters, and Mr. Harding is our lawyer,
+and he will write to you. Well, where was I? Oh, I know--on Miss Letty's
+nerves. And, say, do you know, that is where I do get--on Miss Letty's
+nerves. I do, truly. You see, Mr. Harding very kindly suggested that
+I live with them, but, mercy! Miss Letty's nerves won't let you walk
+except on tiptoe, and Miss Ann's heart won't let you speak except in
+whispers. All the chairs and tables have worn little sockets in the
+carpets, and it's a crime to move them. There isn't a window-shade in
+the house that isn't pulled down EXACTLY to the middle sash, except
+where the sun shines, and those are pulled way down. Imagine me and
+Spunk living there! Oh, by the way, you don't mind my bringing Spunk,
+do you? I hope you don't, for I couldn't live without Spunk, and he
+couldn't live with out me.
+
+"Please let me hear from you very soon. I don't mind if you telegraph;
+and just 'come' would be all you'd have to say. Then I'd get ready right
+away and let you know what train to meet me on. And, oh, say--if you'll
+wear a pink in your buttonhole I will, too. Then we'll know each other.
+My address is just 'Hampden Falls.'
+
+"Your awfully homesick namesake,
+
+"BILLY HENSHAW NEILSON"
+
+
+For one long minute there was a blank silence about the Henshaw
+dinner-table; then the eldest brother, looking anxiously from one man to
+the other, stammered:
+
+"W-well?"
+
+"Great Scott!" breathed Bertram.
+
+Cyril said nothing, but his lips were white with their tense pressure
+against each other.
+
+There was another pause, and again William broke it anxiously.
+
+"Boys, this isn't helping me out any! What's to be done?"
+
+"'Done'!" flamed Cyril. "Surely, you aren't thinking for a moment of
+LETTING that child come here, William!"
+
+Bertram chuckled.
+
+"He WOULD liven things up, Cyril; wouldn't he? Such nice smooth floors
+you've got up-stairs to trundle little tin carts across!"
+
+"Tin nonsense!" retorted Cyril. "Don't be silly, Bertram. That letter
+wasn't written by a baby. He'd be much more likely to make himself at
+home with your paint box, or with some of William's junk."
+
+"Oh, I say," expostulated William, "we'll HAVE to keep him out of those
+things, you know."
+
+Cyril pushed back his chair from the table.
+
+"'We'll have to keep him out'! William, you can't be in earnest! You
+aren't going to let that boy come here," he cried.
+
+"But what can I do?" faltered the man.
+
+"Do? Say 'no,' of course. As if we wanted a boy to bring up!"
+
+"But I must do something. I--I'm all he's got. He says so."
+
+"Good heavens! Well, send him to boarding-school, then, or to the
+penitentiary; anywhere but here!"
+
+"Shucks! Let the kid come," laughed Bertram. "Poor little homesick
+devil! What's the use? I'll take him in. How old is he, anyhow?"
+
+William frowned, and mused aloud slowly.
+
+"Why, I don't know. He must be--er--why, boys, he's no child," broke off
+the man suddenly. "Walter himself died seventeen or eighteen years ago,
+not more than a year or two after he was married. That child must be
+somewhere around eighteen years old!"
+
+"And only think how Cyril WAS worrying about those tin carts," laughed
+Bertram. "Never mind--eight or eighteen--let him come. If he's that age,
+he won't bother much."
+
+"And this--er--'Spunk'; do you take him, too? But probably he doesn't
+bother, either," murmured Cyril, with smooth sarcasm.
+
+"Gorry! I forgot Spunk," acknowledged Bertram. "Say, what in time is
+Spunk, do you suppose?"
+
+"Dog, maybe," suggested William.
+
+"Well, whatever he is, you will kindly keep Spunk down-stairs," said
+Cyril with decision. "The boy, I suppose I shall have to endure; but the
+dog--!"
+
+"Hm-m; well, judging by his name," murmured Bertram, apologetically, "it
+may be just possible that Spunk won't be easily controlled. But maybe he
+isn't a dog, anyhow. He--er--sounds something like a parrot to me."
+
+Cyril rose to his feet abruptly. He had eaten almost no dinner.
+
+"Very well," he said coldly. "But please remember that I hold you
+responsible, Bertram. Whether it's a dog, or a parrot, or--or a monkey,
+I shall expect you to keep Spunk down-stairs. This adopting into the
+family an unknown boy seems to me very absurd from beginning to end.
+But if you and William will have it so, of course I've nothing to say.
+Fortunately my rooms are at the TOP of the house," he finished, as he
+turned and left the dining-room.
+
+For a moment there was silence. The brows of the younger man were
+uplifted quizzically.
+
+"I'm afraid Cyril is bothered," murmured William then, in a troubled
+voice.
+
+Bertram's face changed. Stern lines came to his boyish mouth.
+
+"He is always bothered--with anything, lately."
+
+The elder man sighed.
+
+"I know, but with his talent--"
+
+"'Talent'! Great Scott!" cut in Bertram. "Half the world has talent of
+one sort or another; but that doesn't necessarily make them unable
+to live with any one else! Really, Will, it's becoming serious--about
+Cyril. He's getting to be, for all the world, like those finicky old
+maids that that young namesake of yours wrote about. He'll make us
+whisper and walk on tiptoe yet!"
+
+The other smiled.
+
+"Don't you worry. You aren't in any danger of being kept too quiet,
+young man."
+
+"No thanks to Cyril, then," retorted Bertram. "Anyhow, that's one
+reason why I was for taking the kid--to mellow up Cyril. He needs it all
+right."
+
+"But I had to take him, Bert," argued the elder brother, his face
+growing anxious again. "But Heaven only knows what I'm going to do with
+him when I get him. What shall I say to him, anyway? How shall I write?
+I don't know how to get up a letter of that sort!"
+
+"Why not take him at his word and telegraph? I fancy you won't have to
+say 'come' but once before you see him. He doesn't seem to be a bashful
+youth."
+
+"Hm-m; I might do that," acquiesced William, slowly. "But wasn't there
+somebody--a lawyer--going to write to me?" he finished, consulting the
+letter by his plate. "Yes," he added, after a moment, "a Mr. Harding.
+Wonder if he's any relation to Ned Harding. I used to know Ned at
+Harvard, and seems as if he came from Hampden Falls. We'll soon see, at
+all events. Maybe I'll hear to-morrow."
+
+"I shouldn't wonder," nodded Bertram, as he rose from the table.
+"Anyhow, I wouldn't do anything till I did hear."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+BILLY SENDS A TELEGRAM
+
+
+James Harding's letter very promptly followed Billy's, though it was
+not like Billy's at all. It told something of Billy's property, and
+mentioned that, according to Mrs. Neilson's will, Billy would not
+come into control of her fortune until the age of twenty-one years was
+reached. It dwelt at some length upon the fact of Billy's loneliness in
+the world, and expressed the hope that her father's friend could find it
+in his heart to welcome the orphan into his home. It mentioned Ned, and
+the old college friendship, and it closed by saying that the writer,
+James Harding, was glad to renew his acquaintance with the good old
+Henshaw family that he had known long years ago; and that he hoped soon
+to hear from William Henshaw himself.
+
+It was a good letter--but it was not well written. James Harding's
+handwriting was not distinguished for its legibility, and his
+correspondents rejoiced that the most of his letters were dictated to
+his stenographer. In this case, however, he had elected to use the more
+personal pen; and it was because of this that William Henshaw, even
+after reading the letter, was still unaware of his mistake in supposing
+his namesake, Billy, to be a boy.
+
+In the main the lawyer had referred to Billy by name, or as "the
+orphan," or as that "poor, lonely child." And whenever the more
+distinctive feminine "her" or "herself" had occurred, the carelessly
+formed letters had made them so much like "his" and "himself" that they
+carried no hint of the truth to a man who had not the slightest reason
+for thinking himself in the wrong. It was therefore still for the "boy,"
+Billy, that William Henshaw at once set about making a place in the
+home.
+
+First he telegraphed the single word "Come" to Billy.
+
+"I'll set the poor lad's heart at rest," he said to Bertram. "I shall
+answer Harding's letter more at length, of course. Naturally he wants to
+know something about me now before he sends Billy along; but there is no
+need for the boy to wait before he knows that I'll take him. Of course
+he won't come yet, till Harding hears from me."
+
+It was just here, however, that William Henshaw met with a surprise, for
+within twenty-four hours came Billy's answer, and by telegraph.
+
+
+"I'm coming to-morrow. Train due at five P. M.
+
+"BILLY."
+
+
+William Henshaw did not know that in Hampden Falls Billy's trunk had
+been packed for days. Billy was desperate. The house, even with the
+maid, and with the obliging neighbor and his wife who stayed there
+nights, was to Billy nothing but a dismal tomb. Lawyer Harding had
+fallen suddenly ill; she could not even tell him that the blessed
+telegram "Come" had arrived. Hence Billy, lonely, impulsive, and always
+used to pleasing herself, had taken matters in hand with a confident
+grasp, and had determined to wait no longer.
+
+That it was a fearsomely unknown future to which she was so jauntily
+pledging herself did not trouble the girl in the least. Billy was
+romantic. To sally gaily forth with a pink in the buttonhole of her
+coat to find her father's friend who was a "Billy" too, seemed to Billy
+Neilson not only delightful, but eminently sensible, and an excellent
+way out of her present homesick loneliness. So she bought the pink and
+her ticket, and impatiently awaited the time to start.
+
+To the Beacon Street house, Billy's cheerful telegram brought the direst
+consternation. Even Kate was hastily summoned to the family conclave
+that immediately resulted.
+
+"There's nothing--simply nothing that I can do," she declared irritably,
+when she had heard the story. "Surely, you don't expect ME to take the
+boy!"
+
+"No, no, of course not," sighed William. "But you see, I supposed I'd
+have time to--to get used to things, and to make arrangements; and this
+is so--so sudden! I hadn't even answered Harding's letter until to-day;
+and he hasn't got that--much less replied to it."
+
+"But what could you expect after sending that idiotic telegram?"
+demanded the lady. "'Come,' indeed!"
+
+"But that's what Billy told me to do."
+
+"What if it was? Just because a foolish eighteen-year-old boy tells
+you to do something, must you, a supposedly sensible forty-year-old man
+obey?"
+
+"I think it tickled Will's romantic streak," laughed Bertram. "It seemed
+so sort of alluring to send that one word 'Come' out into space, and
+watch what happened."
+
+"Well, he's found out, certainly," observed Cyril, with grim
+satisfaction.
+
+"Oh, no; it hasn't happened yet," corrected Bertram, cheerfully. "It's
+just going to happen. William's got to put on the pink first, you know.
+That's the talisman."
+
+William reddened.
+
+"Bertram, don't be foolish. I sha'n't wear any pink. You must know
+that."
+
+"How'll you find him, then?"
+
+"Why, he'll have one on; that's enough," settled William.
+
+"Hm-m; maybe. Then he'll have Spunk, too," murmured Bertram,
+mischievously.
+
+"Spunk!" cried Kate.
+
+"Yes. He wrote that he hoped we wouldn't mind his bringing Spunk with
+him."
+
+"Who's Spunk?
+
+"We don't know." Bertram's lips twitched.
+
+"You don't know! What do you mean?"
+
+"Well, Will thinks it's a dog, and I believe Cyril is anticipating a
+monkey. I myself am backing it for a parrot."
+
+"Boys, what have you done!" groaned Kate, falling back in her chair.
+"What have you done!"
+
+To William her words were like an electric shock stirring him to instant
+action. He sprang abruptly to his feet.
+
+"Well, whatever we've done, we've done it," he declared sternly;
+"and now we must do the rest--and do it well, too. He's the son of my
+boyhood's dearest friend, and he shall be made welcome. Now to business!
+Bertram, you said you'd take him in. Did you mean it?"
+
+Bertram sobered instantly, and came erect in his chair. William did not
+often speak like this; but when he did--
+
+"Yes, Will. He shall have the little bedroom at the end of the hall. I
+never used the room much, anyhow, and what few duds I have there shall
+be cleared out to-morrow."
+
+"Good! Now there are some other little details to arrange, then I'll
+go down-stairs and tell Pete and Dong Ling. And, please to understand,
+we're going to make this lad welcome--welcome, I say!"
+
+"Yes, sir," said Bertram. Neither Kate nor Cyril spoke.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+GETTING READY FOR BILLY
+
+
+The Henshaw household was early astir on the day of Billy's expected
+arrival, and preparations for the guest's comfort were well under way
+before breakfast. The center of activity was in the little room at the
+end of the hall on the second floor; though, as Bertram said, the whole
+Strata felt the "upheaval."
+
+By breakfast time Bertram with the avowed intention of giving "the
+little chap half a show," had the room cleared for action; and after
+that the whole house was called upon for contributions toward the room's
+adornment. And most generously did most of the house respond. Even Dong
+Ling slippered up-stairs and presented a weird Chinese banner which
+he said he was "velly much glad" to give. As to Pete--Pete was in his
+element. Pete loved boys. Had he not served them nearly all his life?
+Incidentally it may be mentioned that he did not care for girls.
+
+Only Cyril held himself aloof. But that he was not oblivious of the
+proceedings below him was evidenced by the somber bass that floated down
+from his piano strings. Cyril always played according to the mood that
+was on him; and when Bertram heard this morning the rhythmic beats of
+mournfulness, he chuckled and said to William:
+
+"That's Chopin's Funeral March. Evidently Cy thinks this is the death
+knell to all his hopes of future peace and happiness."
+
+"Dear me! I wish Cyril would take some interest," grieved William.
+
+"Oh, he takes interest all right," laughed Bertram, meaningly. "He takes
+INTEREST!"
+
+"I know, but--Bertram," broke off the elder man, anxiously, from his
+perch on the stepladder, "would you put the rifle over this window, or
+the fishing-rod?"
+
+"Why, I don't think it makes much difference, so long as they're
+somewhere," answered Bertram. "And there are these Indian clubs and the
+swords to be disposed of, you know."
+
+"Yes; and it's going to look fine; don't you think?" exulted William.
+"And you know for the wall-space between the windows I'm going to bring
+down that case of mine, of spiders."
+
+Bertram raised his hands in mock surprise.
+
+"Here--down here! You're going to trust any of those precious treasures
+of yours down here!"
+
+William frowned.
+
+"Nonsense, Bertram, don't be silly! They'll be safe enough. Besides,
+they're old, anyhow. I was on spiders years ago--when I was Billy's age,
+in fact. I thought he'd like them here. You know boys always like such
+things."
+
+"Oh, 'twasn't Billy I was worrying about," retorted Bertram. "It was
+you--and the spiders."
+
+"Not much you worry about me--or anything else," replied William,
+good-humoredly. "There! how does that look?" he finished, as he
+carefully picked his way down the stepladder.
+
+"Fine!--er--only rather warlike, maybe, with the guns and that riotous
+confusion of knives and scimitars over the chiffonier. But then, maybe
+you're intending Billy for a soldier; eh?"
+
+"Do you know? I AM getting interested in that boy," beamed William, with
+some excitement. "What kind of things do you suppose he does like?"
+
+"There's no telling. Maybe he's a sissy chap, and will howl at your guns
+and spiders. Perhaps he'll prefer autumn leaves and worsted mottoes for
+decoration."
+
+"Not much he will," contested the other. "No son of Walter Neilson's
+could be a sissy. Neilson was the best half-back in ten years at
+Harvard, and he was always in for everything going that was worth while.
+'Autumn leaves and worsted mottoes' indeed! Bah!"
+
+"All right; but there's still a dark horse in the case, you know. We
+mustn't forget--Spunk."
+
+The elder man stirred uneasily.
+
+"Bert, what do you suppose that creature is? You don't think Cyril can
+be right, and that it's a--monkey?"
+
+"'You never can tell,'" quoted Bertram, merrily. "Of course there ARE
+other things. If it were you, now, we'd only have to hunt up the special
+thing you happened to be collecting at the time, and that would be it: a
+snake, a lizard, a toad, or maybe a butterfly. You know you were always
+lugging those things home when you were his age."
+
+"Yes, I know," sighed William. "But I can't think it's anything like
+that," he finished, as he turned away.
+
+There was very little done in the Beacon Street house that day but to
+"get ready for Billy." In the kitchen Dong Ling cooked. Everywhere else,
+except in Cyril's domain, Pete dusted and swept and "puttered" to his
+heart's content. William did not go to the office at all that day, and
+Bertram did not touch his brushes. Only Cyril attended to his usual
+work: practising for a coming concert, and correcting the proofs of his
+new book, "Music in Russia."
+
+At ten minutes before five William, anxious-eyed and nervous, found
+himself at the North Station. Then, and not till then, did he draw a
+long breath of relief.
+
+"There! I think everything's ready," he sighed to himself. "At last!"
+
+He wore no pink in his buttonhole. There was no need that he should
+accede to that silly request, he told himself. He had only to look for
+a youth of perhaps eighteen years, who would be alone, a little
+frightened, possibly, and who would have a pink in his buttonhole, and
+probably a dog on a leash.
+
+As he waited, the man was conscious of a curious warmth at his heart.
+It was his namesake, Walter Neilson's boy, that he had come to meet; a
+homesick, lonely orphan who had appealed to him--to him, out of all the
+world. Long years ago in his own arms there had been laid a tiny bundle
+of flannel holding a precious little red, puckered face. But in a
+month's time the little face had turned cold and waxen, and the hopes
+that the white flannel bundle had carried had died with the baby
+boy;--and that baby would have been a lad grown by this time, if he had
+lived--a lad not far from the age of this Billy who was coming to-day,
+reflected the man. And the warmth in his heart deepened and glowed the
+more as he stood waiting at the gate for Billy to arrive.
+
+The train from Hampden Falls was late. Not until quite fifteen minutes
+past five did it roll into the train-shed. Then at once its long line of
+passengers began to sweep toward the iron gate.
+
+William was just inside the gate now, anxiously scanning every face and
+form that passed. There were many half-grown lads, but there was not one
+with a pink in his buttonhole until very near the end. Then William saw
+him--a pleasant-faced, blue-eyed boy in a neat gray suit. With a low cry
+William started forward; but he saw at once that the gray-clad youth was
+unmistakably one of a merry family party. He looked to be anything but a
+lad that was lonely and forlorn.
+
+William hesitated and fell back. This debonair, self-reliant fellow
+could not be Billy! But as a hasty glance down the line revealed only
+half a dozen straggling women, and beyond them, no one, William decided
+that it must be Billy; and taking brave hold of his courage, he hurried
+after the blue-eyed youth and tapped him on the shoulder.
+
+"Er--aren't you Billy?" he stammered.
+
+The lad stopped and stared. He shook his head slowly.
+
+"No, sir," he said.
+
+"But you must be! Are you sure?"
+
+The boy laughed this time.
+
+"Sorry, sir, but my name is 'Frank'; isn't it, mother?" he added
+merrily, turning to the lady at his side, who was regarding William very
+unfavorably through a pair of gold-bowed spectacles.
+
+William did not wait for more. With a stammered apology and a flustered
+lifting of his hat he backed away.
+
+But where was Billy?
+
+William looked about him in helpless dismay. All around was a wide,
+empty space. The long aisle to the Hampden Falls train was deserted
+save for the baggage-men loading the trunks and bags on to their trucks.
+Nowhere was there any one who seemed forlorn or ill at ease except a
+pretty girl with a suit-case, and with a covered basket on her arm, who
+stood just outside the gate, gazing a little nervously about her.
+
+William looked twice at this girl. First, because the splash of color
+against her brown coat had called his attention to the fact that she was
+wearing a pink; and secondly because she was very pretty, and her dark
+eyes carried a peculiarly wistful appeal.
+
+"Too bad Bertram isn't here," thought William. "He'd be sketching that
+face in no time on his cuff."
+
+The pink had given William almost a pang. He had been so longing to see
+a pink--though in a different place. He wondered sympathetically if she,
+too, had come to meet some one who had not appeared. He noticed that she
+walked away from the gate once or twice, toward the waiting-room, and
+peered anxiously through the glass doors; but always she came back to
+the gate as if fearful to be long away from that place. He forgot all
+about her very soon, for her movements had given him a sudden idea:
+perhaps Billy was in the waiting-room. How stupid of him not to think of
+it before! Doubtless they had missed each other in the crowd, and Billy
+had gone straight to the waiting-room to look for him. And with this
+thought William hurried away at once, leaving the girl still standing by
+the gate alone.
+
+He looked everywhere. Systematically he paced up and down between the
+long rows of seats, looking for a boy with a pink. He even went out upon
+the street, and gazed anxiously in all directions. It occurred to him
+after a time that possibly Billy, like himself, had changed his mind at
+the last moment, and not worn the pink. Perhaps he had forgotten it, or
+lost it, or even not been able to get it at all. Very bitterly William
+blamed himself then for disregarding his own part of the suggested
+plan. If only he had worn the pink himself!--but he had not; and it
+was useless to repine. In the meantime, where was Billy, he wondered
+frantically.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE COMING OF BILLY
+
+
+After another long search William came back to the train-shed, vaguely
+hoping that Billy might even then be there. The girl was still standing
+alone by the gate. There was another train on the track now, and
+the rush of many feet had swept her a little to one side. She looked
+frightened now, and almost ready to cry. Still, William noticed that
+her chin was lifted bravely, and that she was making a stern effort at
+self-control. He hesitated a moment, then went straight toward her.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said kindly, lifting his hat, "but I notice that
+you have been waiting here some time. Perhaps there is something I can
+do for you."
+
+A rosy color swept to the girl's face. Her eyes lost their frightened
+appeal, and smiled frankly into his.
+
+"Oh, thank you, sir! There IS something you can do for me, if you will
+be so kind. You see, I can't leave this place, I'm so afraid he'll
+come and I'll miss him. But--I think there's some mistake. Could you
+telephone for me?" Billy Neilson was country-bred, and in Hampden Falls
+all men served all other men and women, whether they were strangers or
+not; so to Billy this was not an extraordinary request to make, in the
+least.
+
+William Henshaw smiled.
+
+"Certainly; I shall be very glad to telephone for you. Just tell me whom
+you want, and what you want to say."
+
+"Thank you. If you'll call up Mr. William Henshaw, then, of Beacon
+Street, please, and tell him Billy's come. I'll wait here."
+
+"Oh, then Billy did come!" cried the man in glad surprise, his face
+alight. "But where is he? Do YOU know Billy?"
+
+"I should say I did," laughed Billy, with the lightness of a long-lost
+child who has found a friend. "Why, I am Billy, myself!"
+
+To William Henshaw the world swam dizzily, and went suddenly mad.
+The floor rose, and the roof fell, while cars and people performed
+impossible acrobatic feats above, below, and around him. Then, from afar
+off, he heard his own voice stammer:
+
+"You--are--B-Billy!"
+
+"Yes; and I'll wait here, if you'll just tell him, please. He's
+expecting me, you know, so it's all right, only perhaps he made a
+mistake in the time. Maybe you know him, anyhow."
+
+With one mighty effort William Henshaw pulled himself sharply together.
+He even laughed, and tossed his head in a valiant imitation of Billy
+herself; but his voice shook.
+
+"Know him!--I should say I did!" he cried. "Why, I am William Henshaw,
+myself."
+
+"You!--Uncle William! Why, where's your pink?"
+
+The man's face was already so red it could not get any redder--but it
+tried to do so.
+
+"Why, er--I--it--er--if you'll just come into the waiting-room a minute,
+my dear," he stuttered miserably, "I--I'll explain--about that. I shall
+have to leave you--for a minute," he plunged on frenziedly, as he led
+the way to a seat; "A--matter of business that I must attend to. I'll
+be--right back. Wait here, please!" And he almost pushed the girl into a
+seat and hurried away.
+
+At a safe distance William Henshaw turned and looked back. His knees
+were shaking, and his fingers had grown cold at their tips. He could see
+her plainly, as she bent over the basket in her lap. He could see even
+the pretty curve of her cheek, and of her slender throat when she lifted
+her head.
+
+And that was Billy--a GIRL!
+
+People near him at that moment saw a flushed-faced, nervous-appearing
+man throw up his hands with a despairing gesture, roll his eyes
+heavenward, and then plunge into the nearest telephone booth.
+
+In due time William Henshaw had his brother Bertram at the other end of
+the wire.
+
+"Bertram!" he called shakily.
+
+"Hullo, Will; that you? What's the matter? You're late! Didn't he come?"
+
+"Come!" groaned William. "Good Lord! Bertram--Billy's a GIRL!"
+
+"A wh-what?"
+
+"A girl."
+
+"A GIRL!"
+
+"Yes, yes! Don't stand there repeating what I say in that idiotic
+fashion, Bertram. Do something--do something!"
+
+"'Do something'!" gasped Bertram. "Great Scott, Will! If you want me to
+do something, don't knock me silly with a blow like that. Now what did
+you say?"
+
+"I said that Billy is--a--girl. Can't you get that?" demanded William,
+despairingly.
+
+"Well, by Jove!" breathed Bertram.
+
+"Come, come, think! What shall we do?"
+
+"Why, bring her home, of course."
+
+"Home--home!" chattered William. "Do you think we five men can bring up
+a distractingly pretty eighteen-year-old girl with curly cheeks and pink
+hair?"
+
+"With wha-at?"
+
+"No, no. I mean curly hair and pink cheeks. Bertram, do be sensible,"
+begged the man. "This is serious!"
+
+"Serious! I should say it was! Only fancy what Cy will say! A girl! Holy
+smoke! Tote her along--I want to see her!"
+
+"But I say we can't keep her there with us, Bertram. Don't you see we
+can't?"
+
+"Then take her to Kate's, or to--to one of those Young Women's Christian
+Union things."
+
+"No, no, I can't do that. That's impossible. Don't you understand? She's
+expecting to go home with me--HOME! I'm her Uncle William."
+
+"Lucky Uncle William!"
+
+"Be still, Bertram!"
+
+"Well, doesn't she know your--mistake?--that you thought she was a boy?"
+
+"Heaven forbid!--I hope not," cried the man, fervently. "I 'most let it
+out once, but I think she didn't notice it. You see, we--we were both
+surprised."
+
+"Well, I should say!"
+
+"And, Bertram, I can't turn her out--I can't, I tell you. Only fancy my
+going to her now and saying: 'If you please, Billy, you can't live at
+my house, after all. I thought you were a boy, you know!' Great Scott!
+Bert, if she'd once turned those big brown eyes of hers on you as she
+has on me, you'd see!"
+
+"I'd be delighted, I'm sure," sung a merry voice across the wires.
+"Sounds real interesting!"
+
+"Bertram, can't you be serious and help me out?"
+
+"But what CAN we do?"
+
+"I don't know. We'll have to think; but for now, get Kate. Telephone
+her. Tell her to come right straight over, and that she's got to stay
+all night."
+
+"All night!"
+
+"Of course! Billy's got to have a chaperon; hasn't she? Now hurry. We
+shall be up right away."
+
+"Kate's got company."
+
+"Never mind--leave 'em. Tell her she's got to leave 'em. And tell Cyril,
+of course, what to expect. And, look a-here, you two behave, now. None
+of your nonsense! Now mind. I'm not going to have this child tormented."
+
+"I won't bat an eyelid--on my word, I won't," chuckled Bertram. "But,
+oh, I say,--Will!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What's Spunk?"
+
+"Eh?--oh--Great Scott! I forgot Spunk. I don't know. She's got a basket.
+He's in that, I suppose. Anyhow, he can't be any more of a bombshell
+than his mistress was. Now be quick, and none of your fooling, Bertram.
+Tell them all--Pete and Dong Ling. Don't forget. I wouldn't have Billy
+find out for the world! Fix it up with Kate. You'll have to fix it up
+with her; that's all!" And there came the sharp click of the receiver
+against the hook.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+INTRODUCING SPUNK
+
+
+In the soft April twilight Cyril was playing a dreamy waltz when Bertram
+knocked, and pushed open the door.
+
+"Say, old chap, you'll have to quit your mooning this time and sit up
+and take notice."
+
+"What do you mean?" Cyril stopped playing and turned abruptly.
+
+"I mean that Will has gone crazy, and I think the rest of us are going
+to follow suit."
+
+Cyril shrugged his shoulders and whirled about on the piano stool. In a
+moment his fingers had slid once more into the dreamy waltz.
+
+"When you get ready to talk sense, I'll listen," he said coldly.
+
+"Oh, very well; if you really want it broken gently, it's this: Will has
+met Billy, and Billy is a girl. They're due here now 'most any time."
+
+The music stopped with a crash.
+
+"A--GIRL!"
+
+"Yes, a girl. Oh, I've been all through that, and I know how you feel.
+But as near as I can make out, it's really so. I've had instructions to
+tell everybody, and I've told. I got Kate on the telephone, and she's
+coming over. You KNOW what SHE'LL be. Dong Ling is having what I suppose
+are Chinese hysterics in the kitchen; and Pete is swinging back and
+forth like a pendulum in the dining-room, moaning 'Good Lord, deliver
+us!' at every breath. I would suggest that you follow me down-stairs so
+that we may be decently ready for--whatever comes." And he turned about
+and stalked out of the room, followed by Cyril, who was too stunned to
+open his lips.
+
+Kate came first. She was not stunned. She had a great deal to say.
+
+"Really, this is a little the most absurd thing I ever heard of," she
+fumed. "What in the world does your brother mean?"
+
+That she quite ignored her own relationship to the culprit was not lost
+on Bertram. He made instant response.
+
+"As near as I can make out," he replied smoothly, "YOUR brother has
+fallen under the sway of a pair of great dark eyes, two pink cheeks, and
+an unknown quantity of curly hair, all of which in its entirety is his
+namesake, is lonesome, and is in need of a home."
+
+"But she can't live--here!"
+
+"Will says she shall."
+
+"But that is utter nonsense," cut in Cyril.
+
+"For once I agree with you, Cyril," laughed Bertram; "but William
+doesn't."
+
+"But how can she do it?" demanded Kate.
+
+"Don't know," answered Bertram. "He's established a petticoat propriety
+in you for a few hours, at least. Meanwhile, he's going to think. At
+least, he says he is, and that we've got to help him."
+
+"Humph!" snapped Kate. "Well, I can prophesy we sha'n't think alike--so
+you'd notice it!"
+
+"I know that," nodded Bertram; "and I'm with you and Cyril on this. The
+whole thing is absurd. The idea of thrusting a silly, eighteen-year-old
+girl here into our lives in this fashion! But you know what Will is when
+he's really roused. You might as well try to move a nice good-natured
+mountain by saying 'please,' as to try to stir him under certain
+circumstances. Most of the time, I'll own, we can twist him around our
+little fingers. But not now. You'll see. In the first place, she's the
+daughter of his dead friend, and she DID write a pathetic little letter.
+It got to the inside of me, anyhow, when I thought she was a boy."
+
+"A boy! Who wouldn't think she was a boy?" interposed Cyril. "'Billy,'
+indeed! Can you tell me what for any sane man should have named a girl
+'Billy'?"
+
+"For William, your brother, evidently," retorted Bertram, dryly.
+"Anyhow, he did it, and of course our mistake was a very natural one.
+The dickens of it is now that we've got to keep it from her, so Will
+says; and how--hush! here they are," he broke off, as there came the
+sound of wheels stopping before the house.
+
+There followed the click of a key in the lock and the opening of a heavy
+door; then, full in the glare of the electric lights stood a plainly
+nervous man, and a girl with startled, appealing eyes.
+
+"My dear," stammered William, "this is my sister, Kate, Mrs. Hartwell;
+and here are Cyril and Bertram, whom I've told you of. And of course I
+don't need to say to them that you are Billy."
+
+It was over. William drew a long breath, and gave an agonized look into
+his brothers' eyes. Then Billy turned from Mrs. Hartwell and held out a
+cordial hand to each of the men in turn.
+
+"Oh, you don't know how lovely this is--to me," she cried softly. "And
+to think that you were willing I should come!" The two younger men
+caught their breath sharply, and tried not to see each other's eyes.
+"You look so good--all of you; and I don't believe there's one of you
+that's got nerves or a heart," she laughed.
+
+Bertram rallied his wits to respond to the challenge.
+
+"No heart, Miss Billy? Now isn't that just a bit hard on us--right at
+first?"
+
+"Not a mite, if you take it the way I mean it," dimpled Billy. "Hearts
+that are all right just keep on pumping, and you never know they are
+there. They aren't worth mentioning. It's the other kind--the kind that
+flutters at the least noise and jumps at the least bang! And I don't
+believe any of you mind noises and bangs," she finished merrily, as she
+handed her hat and coat to Mrs. Hartwell, who was waiting to receive
+them.
+
+Bertram laughed. Cyril scowled, and occupied himself in finding a chair.
+William had already dropped himself wearily on to the sofa near his
+sister. Billy still continued to talk.
+
+"Now when Spunk and I get to training--oh, and you haven't seen Spunk!"
+she interrupted herself suddenly. "Why, the introductions aren't half
+over. Where is he, Uncle William--the basket?"
+
+"I--I put it in--in the hall," mumbled William, starting to rise.
+
+"No, no; I'll get him," cried Billy, hurrying from the room. She
+returned in a moment, the green covered basket in her hand. "He's been
+asleep, I guess. He's slept 'most all the way down, anyhow. He's so used
+to being toted 'round in this basket that he doesn't mind it a bit. I
+take him everywhere in it at the Falls."
+
+There was an electric pause. Four pairs of startled, questioning,
+fearful eyes were on the basket while Billy fumbled at the knot of the
+string. The next moment, with a triumphant flourish, Billy lifted from
+the basket and placed on the floor a very small gray kitten with a very
+large pink bow.
+
+"There, ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you, Spunk."
+
+The tiny creature winked and blinked, and balanced for a moment on
+sleepy legs; then at the uncontrollable shout that burst from Bertram's
+throat, he faced the man, humped his tiny back, bristled his diminutive
+tail to almost unbelievable fluffiness, and spit wrathfully.
+
+"And so that is Spunk!" choked Bertram.
+
+"Yes," said Billy. "This is Spunk."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE ROOM--AND BILLY
+
+
+For the first fifteen minutes after Billy's arrival conversation was a
+fitful thing made up mostly of a merry monologue on the part of Billy
+herself, interspersed with somewhat dazed replies from one after another
+of her auditors as she talked to them in turn. No one thought to ask if
+she cared to go up to her room, and during the entire fifteen minutes
+Billy sat on the floor with Spunk in her lap. She was still there when
+the funereal face of Pete appeared in the doorway. Pete's jaw dropped.
+It was plain that only the sternest self-control enabled him to announce
+dinner, with anything like dignity. But he managed to stammer out the
+words, and then turn loftily away. Bertram, who sat near the door,
+however, saw him raise his hands in horror as he plunged through the
+hall and down the stairway.
+
+With a motion to Bertram to lead the way with Billy, William frenziedly
+gripped his sister's arm, and hissed in her ear for all the world like a
+villain in melodrama:
+
+"Listen! You'll sleep in Bert's room to-night, and Bert will come
+up-stairs with me. Get Billy to bed as soon as you can after dinner,
+and then come back down to us. We've got to plan what's got to be done.
+Sh-h!" And he dragged his sister downstairs.
+
+In the dining-room there was a slight commotion. Billy stood at her
+chair with Spunk in her arms. Before her Pete was standing, dumbly
+staring into her eyes. At last he stammered:
+
+"Ma'am?"
+
+"A chair, please, I said, for Spunk, you know. Spunk always sits at the
+table right next to me."
+
+It was too much for Bertram. He fled chokingly to the hall. William
+dropped weakly into his own place. Cyril stared as had Pete; but Mrs.
+Hartwell spoke.
+
+"You don't mean--that that cat--has a chair--at the table!" she gasped.
+
+"Yes; and isn't it cute of him?" beamed Billy, entirely misconstruing
+the surprise in the lady's voice. "His mother always sat at table with
+us, and behaved beautifully, too. Of course Spunk is little, and makes
+mistakes sometimes. But he'll learn. Oh, there's a chair right here,"
+she added, as she spied Bertram's childhood's high-chair, which for long
+years had stood unused in the corner. "I'll just squeeze it right in
+here," she finished gleefully, making room for the chair at her side.
+
+When Bertram, a little red of face, but very grave, entered, the
+dining-room a moment later, he found the family seated with Spunk snugly
+placed between Billy and a plainly disgusted and dismayed brother,
+Cyril. The kitten was alert and interested; but he had settled back in
+his chair, and was looking as absurdly dignified as the flaring pink bow
+would let him.
+
+"Isn't he a dear?" Billy was saying. But Bertram noticed that there was
+no reply to this question.
+
+It was a peculiar dinner-party. Only Billy did not feel the strain. Even
+Spunk was not entirely happy--his efforts to investigate the table
+and its contents were too frequently curbed by his mistress for his
+unalloyed satisfaction. William, it is true, made a valiant attempt to
+cause the conversation to be general; but he failed dismally. Kate
+was sternly silent, while Cyril was openly repellent. Bertram talked,
+indeed--but Bertram always talked; and very soon he and Billy had things
+pretty much to themselves--that is, with occasional interruptions caused
+by Spunk. Spunk had an inquisitive nose or paw for each new dish placed
+before his mistress; and Billy spent much time admonishing him. Billy
+said she was training him; that it was wonderful what training would do,
+and, of course, Spunk WAS little, now.
+
+Dinner was half over when there was a slight diversion created by
+Spunk's conclusion to get acquainted with the silent man at his left.
+Cyril, however, did not respond to Spunk's advances. So very evident,
+indeed, was the man's aversion that Billy turned in amazement.
+
+"Why, Mr. Cyril, don't you see? Spunk is trying to say 'How do you do'?"
+
+"Very likely; but I'm not fond of cats, Miss Billy."
+
+"You're not fond--of--cats!" repeated the girl, as if she could not have
+heard aright. "Why not?"
+
+Cyril changed his position.
+
+"Why, just because I--I'm not," he retorted lamely. "Isn't there
+anything that--that you don't like?"
+
+Billy considered.
+
+"Why, not that I know of," she began, after a moment, "only rainy days
+and--tripe. And Spunk isn't a bit like those."
+
+Bertram chuckled, and even Cyril smiled--though unwillingly.
+
+"All the same," he reiterated, "I don't like cats."
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry," lamented Billy; and at the grieved hurt in her dark
+eyes Bertram came promptly to the rescue.
+
+"Never mind, Miss Billy. Cyril is only ONE of us, and there is all the
+rest of the Strata besides."
+
+"The--what?"
+
+"The Strata. You don't know, of course, but listen, and I'll tell you."
+And he launched gaily forth into his favorite story.
+
+Billy was duly amused and interested. She laughed and clapped her hands,
+and when the story was done she clapped them again.
+
+"Oh, what a funny house! And how perfectly lovely that I'm going to
+live in it," she cried. Then straight at Mrs. Hartwell she hurled a
+bombshell. "But where is your stratum?" she demanded. "Mr. Bertram
+didn't mention a thing about you!"
+
+Cyril said a sharp word under his breath. Bertram choked over a cough.
+Kate threw into William's eyes a look that was at once angry, accusing,
+and despairing. Then William spoke.
+
+"Er--she--it isn't anywhere, my dear," he stammered; "or rather, it
+isn't here. Kate lives up on the Avenue, you see, and is only here
+for--for a day or two--just now."
+
+"Oh!" murmured Billy. And there was not one in the room at that moment
+who did not bless Spunk--for Spunk suddenly leaped to the table before
+him; and in the ensuing confusion his mistress quite forgot to question
+further concerning Mrs. Hartwell's stratum.
+
+Dinner over, the three men, with their sister and Billy, trailed
+up-stairs to the drawing-rooms. Billy told them, then, of her life at
+Hampden Falls. She cried a little at the mention of Aunt Ella; and she
+portrayed very vividly the lonely life from which she herself had so
+gladly escaped. She soon had every one laughing, even Cyril, over her
+stories of the lawyer's home that might have been hers, with its gloom
+and its hush and its socketed chairs.
+
+As soon as possible, however, Mrs. Hartwell, with a murmured "I know you
+must be tired, Billy," suggested that the girl go up-stairs to her room.
+"Come," she added, "I will show you the way."
+
+There was some delay, even then, for Spunk had to be provided with
+sleeping quarters; and it was not without some hesitation that Billy
+finally placed the kitten in the reluctant hands of Pete, who had been
+hastily summoned. Then she turned and followed Mrs. Hartwell up-stairs.
+
+It seemed to the three men in the drawing-room that almost immediately
+came the piercing shriek, and the excited voice of their sister in
+expostulation. Without waiting for more they leaped to the stairway and
+hurried up, two steps at a time.
+
+"For heaven's sake, Kate, what is it?" panted William, who had been
+outdistanced by his more agile brothers.
+
+Kate was on her feet, her face the picture of distressed amazement. In
+the low chair by the window Billy sat where she had flung herself, her
+hands over her face. Her shoulders were shaking, and from her throat
+came choking little cries.
+
+"I don't know," quavered Kate. "I haven't the least idea. She was all
+right till she got up-stairs here, and I turned on the lights. Then she
+gave one shriek and--you know all I know."
+
+William advanced hurriedly.
+
+"Billy, what is the matter? What are you crying for?" he demanded.
+
+Billy dropped her hands then, and they saw her face. She was not crying.
+She was laughing. She was laughing so she could scarcely speak.
+
+"Oh, you did, you did!" she gurgled. "I thought you did, and now I
+know!"
+
+"Did what? What do you mean?" William's usually gentle voice was sharp.
+Even William's nerves were beginning to feel the strain of the last few
+hours.
+
+"Thought I was a--b-boy!" choked Billy. "You called me 'he' once in the
+station--I thought you did; but I wasn't sure--not till I saw this room.
+But now I know--I know!" And off she went into another hysterical gale
+of laughter--Billy's nerves, too, were beginning to respond to the
+excitement of the last few hours.
+
+As to the three men and the woman, they stood silent, helpless, looking
+into each other's faces with despairing eyes.
+
+In a moment Billy was on her feet, fluttering about the room, touching
+this thing, looking at that. Nothing escaped her.
+
+"I'm to fish--and shoot--and fence!" she crowed. "And, oh!--look at
+those knives! U-ugh!... And, my! what are these?" she cried, pouncing
+on the Indian clubs. "And look at the spiders! Dear, dear, I AM glad
+they're dead, anyhow," she shuddered with a nervous laugh that was
+almost a sob.
+
+Something in Billy's voice stirred Mrs. Hartwell to sudden action.
+
+"Come, come, this will never do," she protested authoritatively,
+motioning her brothers to leave the room. "Billy is quite tired out, and
+needs rest. She mustn't talk another bit to-night."
+
+"Of c-course not," stammered William. And only too glad of an excuse to
+withdraw from a very embarrassing situation, the three men called back a
+faltering good-night, and precipitately fled down-stairs.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A FAMILY CONCLAVE
+
+
+"Well, William," greeted Kate, grimly, when she came into the
+drawing-room, after putting her charge to bed, "have you had enough,
+now?"
+
+"'Enough'! What do you mean?"
+
+Kate raised her eyebrows.
+
+"Why, surely, you're not thinking NOW that you can keep this girl here;
+are you?"
+
+"I don't know why not."
+
+"William!"
+
+"Well, where shall she go? Will you take her?"
+
+"I? Certainly not," declared Kate, with decision. "I'm sure I see no
+reason why I should."
+
+"No more do I see why William should, either," cut in Cyril.
+
+"Oh, come, what's the use," interposed Bertram. "Let her stay. She's a
+nice little thing, I'm sure."
+
+Cyril and Kate turned sharply.
+
+"Bertram!" The cry was a duet of angry amazement. Then Kate added: "It
+seems that you, too, have come under the sway of dark eyes, pink cheeks,
+and an unknown quantity of curly hair!"
+
+Bertram laughed.
+
+"Oh, well, she would be nice to--er--paint," he murmured.
+
+"See here, children," demurred William, a little sternly, "all this is
+wasting time. There is no way out of it. I wouldn't be seen turning that
+homeless child away now. We must keep her; that's settled. The question
+is, how shall it be done? We must have some woman friend here to be her
+companion, of course; but whom shall we get?"
+
+Kate sighed, and looked her dismay. Bertram threw a glance into Cyril's
+eyes, and made an expressive gesture.
+
+"You see," it seemed to say. "I told you how it would be!"
+
+"Now whom shall we get?" questioned William again. "We must think."
+
+Unattached gentlewomen of suitable age and desirable temper did not
+prove to be so numerous among the Henshaws' acquaintances, however, as
+to make the selection of a chaperon very easy. Several were thought of
+and suggested; but in each case the candidate was found to possess
+one or more characteristics that made the idea of her presence utterly
+abhorrent to some one of the brothers. At last William expostulated:
+
+"See here, boys, we aren't any nearer a settlement than we were in the
+first place. There isn't any woman, of course, who would exactly suit
+all of us; and so we shall just have to be willing to take some one who
+doesn't."
+
+"The trouble is," explained Bertram, airily, "we want some one who will
+be invisible to every one except the world and Billy, and who will be
+inaudible always."
+
+"I don't know but you are right," sighed William. "But suppose we settle
+on Aunt Hannah. She seems to be the least objectionable of the lot,
+and I think she'd come. She's alone in the world, and I believe the
+comfortable roominess of this house would be very grateful to her after
+the inconvenience of her stuffy little room over at the Back Bay."
+
+"You bet it would!" murmured Bertram, feelingly; but William did not
+appear to hear him.
+
+"She's amiable, fairly sensible, and always a lady," he went on; "and
+to-morrow morning I believe I'll run over and see if she can't come
+right away."
+
+"And may I ask which--er--stratum she--they--will occupy?" smiled
+Bertram.
+
+"You may ask, but I'm afraid you won't find out very soon," retorted
+William, dryly, "if we take as long to decide that matter as we have the
+rest of it."
+
+"Er--Cyril has the most--UNOCCUPIED space," volunteered Bertram,
+cheerfully.
+
+"Indeed!" retaliated Cyril. "Suppose you let me speak for myself! Of
+course, so far as truck is concerned, I'm not in it with you and Will.
+But as for the USE I put my rooms to--! Besides, I already have Pete
+there, and would have Dong Ling probably, if he slept here. However,
+if you want any of my rooms, don't let my petty wants and wishes
+interfere--"
+
+"No, no," interrupted William, in quick conciliation. "We don't want
+your rooms, Cyril. Aunt Hannah abhors stairs. Of course I might move, I
+suppose. My rooms are one flight less; but if I only didn't have so many
+things!"
+
+"Oh, you men!" shrugged Kate, wearily. "Why don't you ask my opinion
+sometimes? It seems to me that in this case a woman's wit might be of
+some help!"
+
+"All right, go ahead!" nodded William.
+
+Kate leaned forward eagerly--Kate loved to "manage."
+
+"Go easy, now," cautioned Bertram, warily. "You know a strata, even one
+as solid as ours, won't stand too much of an earthquake!"
+
+"It isn't an earthquake at all," sniffed Kate. "It's a very sensible
+move all around. Here are these two great drawing-rooms, the library,
+and the little reception-room across the hall, and not one of them is
+ever used but this. Of course the women wouldn't like to sleep down
+here, but why don't you, Bertram, take the back drawing-room, the
+library, and the little reception-room for yours, and leave the whole of
+the second floor for Billy and Aunt Hannah?"
+
+"Good for you, Kate," cried Bertram, appreciatively. "You've hit it
+square on the head, and we'll do it. I'll move to-morrow. The light down
+here is just as good as it is up-stairs--if you let it in!"
+
+"Thank you, Bertram, and you, too, Kate," breathed William, fervently.
+"Now, if you don't mind, I believe I'll go to bed. I am tired!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+AUNT HANNAH
+
+
+As soon as possible after breakfast William went to see Aunt Hannah.
+
+Hannah Stetson was not really William's aunt, though she had been called
+Aunt Hannah for years. She was the widow of a distant cousin, and she
+lived in a snug little room in a Back Bay boarding-house. She was a
+slender, white-haired woman with kind blue eyes, and a lovable smile.
+Her cheeks were still faintly pink, and her fine silver-white hair broke
+into little kinks and curls about her ears. According to Bertram she
+always made one think of "lavender and old lace."
+
+She welcomed William cordially this morning, though with faint surprise
+in her eyes.
+
+"Yes, I know I'm an early caller, and an unexpected one," began William,
+hurriedly. "And I shall have to plunge straight into the matter, too,
+for there isn't time to preamble. I've taken an eighteen-year-old girl
+to bring up, Aunt Hannah, and I want you to come down and live with us
+to chaperon her."
+
+"My grief and conscience, WILLIAM!" gasped the little woman, agitatedly.
+
+"Yes, yes, I know, Aunt Hannah, everything you would say if you could.
+But please skip the hysterics. We've all had them, and Kate has already
+used every possible adjective that you could think up. Now it's just
+this." And he hurriedly gave Mrs. Stetson a full account of the case,
+and told her plainly what he hoped and expected that she would do for
+him.
+
+"Why, yes, of course--I'll come," acquiesced the lady, a little
+breathlessly, "if--if you are sure you're going to--keep her."
+
+"Good! And remember I said 'now,' please--that I wanted you to come
+right away, to-day. Of course Kate can't stay. Just get in half a dozen
+women to help you pack, and come."
+
+"Half a dozen women in that little room, William--impossible!"
+
+"Well, I only meant to get enough so you could come right off this
+morning."
+
+"But I don't need them, William. There are only my clothes and books,
+and such things. You know it is a FURNISHED room."
+
+"All right, all right, Aunt Hannah. I wanted to make sure you hurried,
+that's all. You see, I don't want Billy to suspect just how much she's
+upsetting us. I've asked Kate to take her over to her house for the
+day, while Bertram is moving down-stairs, and while we're getting you
+settled. I--I think you'll like it there, Aunt Hannah," added William,
+anxiously. "Of course Billy's got Spunk, but--" he hesitated, and smiled
+a little.
+
+"Got what?" faltered the other.
+
+"Spunk. Oh, I don't mean THAT kind," laughed William, in answer to the
+dismayed expression on his aunt's face. "Spunk is a cat."
+
+"A cat!--but such a name, William! I--I think we'll change that."
+
+"Eh? Oh, you do," murmured William, with a curious smile. "Very well; be
+that as it may. Anyhow, you're coming, and we shall want you all settled
+by dinner time," he finished, as he picked up his hat to go.
+
+With Kate, Billy spent the long day very contentedly in Kate's beautiful
+Commonwealth Avenue home. The two boys, Paul, twelve years old, and
+Egbert, eight, were a little shy, it is true, and not really of much use
+as companions; but there was a little Kate, four years old, who proved
+to be wonderfully entertaining.
+
+Billy was not much used to children, and she found this four-year-old
+atom of humanity to be a great source of interest and amusement. She
+even told Mrs. Hartwell at parting that little Kate was almost as nice
+as Spunk--which remark, oddly enough, did not appear to please Mrs.
+Hartwell to the extent that Billy thought that it would.
+
+At the Beacon Street house Billy was presented at once to Mrs. Stetson.
+
+"And you are to call me 'Aunt Hannah,' my dear," said the little woman,
+graciously, "just as the boys do."
+
+"Thank you," dimpled Billy, "and you don't know, Aunt Hannah, how good
+it seems to me to come into so many relatives, all at once!"
+
+Upon going up-stairs Billy found her room somewhat changed. It was far
+less warlike, and the case of spiders had been taken away.
+
+"And this will be your stratum, you know," announced Bertram from the
+stairway, "yours and Aunt Hannah's. You're to have this whole floor.
+Will and Cyril are above, and I'm down-stairs."
+
+"You are? Why, I thought you--were--here." Billy's face was puzzled.
+
+"Here? Oh, well, I did have--some things here," he retorted airily; "but
+I took them all away to-day. You see, my stratum is down-stairs, and
+it doesn't do to mix the layers. By the way, you haven't been up-stairs
+yet; have you? Come on, and I'll show you--and you, too, Aunt Hannah."
+
+Billy clapped her hands; but Aunt Hannah shook her head.
+
+"I'll leave that for younger feet than mine," she said; adding
+whimsically: "It's best sometimes that one doesn't try to step too far
+off one's own level, you know."
+
+"All right," laughed the man. "Come on, Miss Billy."
+
+On the door at the head of the stairs he tapped twice, lightly.
+
+"Well, Pete," called Cyril's voice, none too cordially.
+
+"Pete, indeed!" scoffed Bertram. "You've got company, young man. Open
+the door. Miss Billy is viewing the Strata."
+
+The bare floor echoed to a quick tread, then the door opened and Cyril
+faced them with a forced smile on his lips.
+
+"Come in--though I fear there will be little--to see," he said.
+
+Bertram assumed a pompous attitude.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen; you behold here the lion in his lair."
+
+"Be still, Bertram," ordered Cyril.
+
+"He is a lion, really," confided Bertram, in a lower voice; "but as he
+prefers it, we'll just call him 'the Musical Man.'"
+
+"I should think I was some sort of music-box that turned with a crank,"
+bristled Cyril.
+
+Bertram grinned.
+
+"A--CRANK, did you say? Well, even I wouldn't have quite dared to say
+that, you know!"
+
+With an impatient gesture Cyril turned on his heel. Bertram fell once
+more into his pompous attitude.
+
+"Before you is the Man's workshop," he orated. "At your right you see
+his instruments of tor--I mean, his instruments: a piano, flute, etc.
+At your left is the desk with its pens, paper, erasers, ink and postage
+stamps. I mention these because there are--er--so few things to mention
+here. Beyond, through the open door, one may catch glimpses of still
+other rooms; but they hold even less than this one holds. Tradition
+doth assert, however, that in one is a couch-bed, and in another, two
+chairs."
+
+Billy listened silently. Her eyes were questioning. She was not
+quite sure how to take Bertram's words; and the bare rooms and their
+stern-faced master filled her with a vague pity. But the pause that
+followed Bertram's nonsense seemed to be waiting for her to fill it.
+
+"Oh, I should like to hear you--play, Mr. Cyril," she stammered. Then,
+gathering courage. "CAN you play 'The Maiden's Prayer'?"
+
+Bertram gave a cough, a spasmodic cough that sent him, red-faced, out
+into the hall. From there he called:
+
+"Can't stop for the animals to perform, Miss Billy. It's 'most dinner
+time, and we've got lots to see yet."
+
+"All right; but--sometime," nodded Billy over her shoulder to Cyril as
+she turned away. "I just love that 'Maiden's Prayer'!"
+
+"Now this is William's stratum," announced Bertram at the foot of the
+stairs. "You will perceive that there is no knocking here; William's
+doors are always open."
+
+"By all means! Come in--come in," called William's cheery voice.
+
+"Oh, my, what a lot of things!" exclaimed Billy. "My--my--what a lot of
+things! How Spunk will like this room!"
+
+Bertram chuckled; then he made a great display of drawing a long breath.
+
+"In the short time at our disposal," he began loftily, "it will be
+impossible to point out each particular article and give its history
+from the beginning; but somewhere you will find four round white stones,
+which--"
+
+"Er--yes, we know all about those white stones," interrupted William,
+"and you'll please let me talk about my own things myself!" And he
+beamed benevolently on the wondering-eyed girl at Bertram's side.
+
+"But there are so many!" breathed Billy.
+
+"All the more chance then," smiled William, "that somewhere among them
+you'll find something to interest you. Now these Chinese ceramics,
+and these bronzes--maybe you'd like those," he suggested. And with a
+resigned sigh and an exaggerated air of submission, Bertram stepped back
+and gave way to his brother.
+
+"And there are these miniatures, and these Japanese porcelains. Or
+perhaps you'd like stamps, or theatre programs better," William finished
+anxiously.
+
+Billy did not reply. She was turning round and round, her eyes wide and
+amazed. Suddenly she pounced on a beautifully decorated teapot, and held
+it up in admiring hands.
+
+"Oh, what a pretty teapot! And what a cute little plate it sets in!" she
+cried.
+
+The collector fairly bubbled over with joy.
+
+"That's a Lowestoft--a real Lowestoft!" he crowed. "Not that
+hard-paste stuff from the Orient that's CALLED Lowestoft, but the real
+thing--English, you know. And that's the tray that goes with it,
+too. Wonderful--how I got them both! You know they 'most always get
+separated. I paid a cool hundred for them, anyhow."
+
+"A hundred dollars for a teapot!" gasped Billy.
+
+"Yes; and here's a nice little piece of lustre-ware. Pretty--isn't it?
+And there's a fine bit of black basalt. And--"
+
+"Er--Will," interposed Bertram, meekly.
+
+"Oh, and here's a Castleford," cried William, paying no attention to
+the interruption. "Marked, too; see? 'D. D. & Co., Castleford.' You know
+there isn't much of that ware marked. This is a beauty, too, I think.
+You see this pitted surface--they made that with tiny little points set
+into the inner side of the mold. The design stands out fine on this.
+It's one of the best I ever saw. And, oh--"
+
+"Er--William," interposed Bertram again, a little louder this time. "May
+I just say--"
+
+"And did you notice this 'Old Blue'?" hurried on William, eagerly. "Lid
+sets down in, you see--that's older than the kind where it sets over the
+top. Now here's one--"
+
+"William," almost shouted Bertram, "DINNER IS READY! Pete has sounded
+the gong twice already!"
+
+"Eh? Oh, sure enough--sure enough," acknowledged William, with a
+regretful glance at his treasures. "Well, we must go, we must go."
+
+"But I haven't seen your stratum at all," demurred Billy to her guide,
+as they went down the stairway.
+
+"Then there's something left for to-morrow," promised Bertram; "but
+you must remember, I haven't got any beautiful 'Old Blues' and 'black
+basalts,' to say nothing of stamps and baggage tags. But I'll make you
+some tea--some real tea--and that's more than William has done, with all
+his hundred and one teapots!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+BERTRAM HAS VISITORS
+
+
+Spunk did not change his name; but that was perhaps the only thing that
+did not meet with some sort of change during the weeks that immediately
+followed Billy's arrival. Given a house, five men, and an ironbound
+routine of life, and it is scarcely necessary to say that the advent
+of a somewhat fussy elderly woman, an impulsive young girl, and a
+very-much-alive small cat will make some difference. As to Spunk's
+name--it was not Mrs. Stetson's fault that even that was left
+undisturbed.
+
+Mrs. Stetson early became acquainted with Spunk. She was introduced
+to him, indeed, on the night of her arrival--though fortunately not
+at table: William had seen to it that Spunk did not appear at dinner,
+though to accomplish this the man had been obliged to face the amazed
+and grieved indignation of the kitten's mistress.
+
+"But I don't see how any one CAN object to a nice clean little cat at
+the table," Billy had remonstrated tearfully.
+
+"I know; but--er--they do, sometimes," William had stammered; "and this
+is one of the times. Aunt Hannah would never stand for it--never!"
+
+"Oh, but she doesn't know Spunk," Billy had observed then, hopefully.
+"You just wait until she knows him."
+
+Mrs. Stetson began to "know" Spunk the next day. The immediate source of
+her knowledge was the discovery that Spunk had found her ball of black
+knitting yarn, and had delightedly captured it. Not that he was content
+to let it remain where it was--indeed, no. He rolled it down the stairs,
+batted it through the hall to the drawing-room, and then proceeded to
+'chasse' with it in and out among the legs of various chairs and tables,
+ending in one grand whirl that wound the yarn round and round his small
+body, and keeled him over half upon his back. There he blissfully went
+to sleep.
+
+Billy found him after a gleeful following of the slender woollen trail.
+Mrs. Stetson was with her--but she was not gleeful.
+
+"Oh, Aunt Hannah, Aunt Hannah," gurgled Billy, "isn't he just too cute
+for anything?"
+
+Aunt Hannah shook her head.
+
+"I must confess I don't see it," she declared. "My dear, just look at
+that hopeless snarl!"
+
+"Oh, but it isn't hopeless at all," laughed Billy. "It's like one of
+those strings they unwind at parties with a present at the end of it.
+And Spunk is the present," she added, when she had extricated the small
+gray cat. "And you shall hold him," she finished, graciously entrusting
+the sleepy kitten to Mrs. Stetson's unwilling arms.
+
+"But, I--it--I can't--Billy! I don't like that name," blurted out the
+indignant little lady with as much warmth as she ever allowed herself to
+show. "It must be changed to--to 'Thomas.'"
+
+"Changed? Spunk's name changed?" demanded Billy, in a horrified voice.
+"Why, Aunt Hannah, it can't be changed; it's HIS, you know." Then she
+laughed merrily. "'Thomas,' indeed! Why, you old dear!--just suppose I
+should ask YOU to change your name! Now _I_ like 'Helen Clarabella' lots
+better than 'Hannah,' but I'm not going to ask you to change that--and
+I'm going to love you just as well, even if you are 'Hannah'--see if I
+don't! And you'll love Spunk, too, I'm sure you will. Now watch me find
+the end of this snarl!" And she danced over to the dumbfounded little
+lady in the big chair, gave her an affectionate kiss, and then attacked
+the tangled mass of black with skilful fingers.
+
+"But, I--you--oh, my grief and conscience!" finished the little woman
+whose name was not Helen Clarabella.--"Oh, my grief and conscience,"
+according to Bertram, was Aunt Hannah's deadliest swear-word.
+
+In Aunt Hannah's black silk lap Spunk stretched luxuriously, and blinked
+sleepy eyes; then with a long purr of content he curled himself for
+another nap--still Spunk.
+
+It was some time after luncheon that day that Bertram heard a knock at
+his studio door. Bertram was busy. His particular pet "Face of a Girl"
+was to be submitted soon to the judges of a forthcoming Art Exhibition,
+and it was not yet finished. He was trying to make up now for the many
+hours lost during the last few days; and even Bertram, at times, did not
+like interruptions. His model had gone, but he was still working rapidly
+when the knock came. His tone was not quite cordial when he answered.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"It's I--Spunk and I. May we come in?" called a confident voice.
+
+Bertram said a sharp word behind his teeth--but he opened the door.
+
+"Of course! I was--painting," he announced.
+
+"How lovely! And I'll watch you. Oh, my--what a pretty room!"
+
+"I'm glad you like it."
+
+"Indeed I do; I like it ever so much. I shall stay here lots, I know."
+
+"Oh, you--will!" For once even Bertram's ready tongue failed to find
+fitting response.
+
+"Yes. Now paint. I want to see you. Aunt Hannah has gone out anyway, and
+I'm lonesome. I think I'll stay."
+
+"But I can't--that is, I'm not used to spectators."
+
+"Of course you aren't, you poor old lonesomeness! But it isn't going to
+be that way, any more, you know, now that I've come. I sha'n't let you
+be lonesome."
+
+"I could swear to that," declared the man, with sudden fervor; and for
+Billy's peace of mind it was just as well, perhaps, that she did not
+know the exact source of that fervency.
+
+"Now paint," commanded Billy again.
+
+Because he did not know what else to do, Bertram picked up a brush; but
+he did not paint. The first stroke of his brush against the canvas was
+to Spunk a challenge; and Spunk never refused a challenge. With a bound
+he was on Bertram's knee, gleeful paw outstretched, batting at the end
+of the brush.
+
+"Tut, tut--no, no--naughty Spunk! Say, but wasn't that cute?" chuckled
+Billy. "Do it again!"
+
+The artist gave an exasperated sigh.
+
+"My dear girl," he protested, "cruel as it may seem to you, this picture
+is not a kindergarten game for the edification of small cats. I must
+politely ask Spunk to desist."
+
+"But he won't!" laughed Billy. "Never mind; we will take it some day
+when he's asleep. Let's not paint any more, anyhow. I've come to see
+your rooms." And she sprang blithely to her feet. "Dear, dear, what a
+lot of faces!--and all girls, too! How funny! Why don't you paint other
+things? Still, they are rather nice."
+
+"Thank you," accepted Bertram; dryly.
+
+Bertram did not paint any more that afternoon. Billy found much to
+interest her, and she asked numberless questions. She was greatly
+excited when she understood the full significance of the omnipresent
+"Face of a Girl"; and she graciously offered to pose herself for the
+artist. She spent, indeed, quite half an hour turning her head from side
+to side, and demanding "Now how's that?--and that?" Tiring at last of
+this, she suggested Spunk as a substitute, remarking that, after all,
+cats--pretty cats like Spunk--were even nicer to paint than girls.
+
+She rescued Spunk then from the paint-box where he had been holding high
+carnival with Bertram's tubes of paint, and demanded if Bertram ever saw
+a more delightful, more entrancing, more altogether-to-be-desired
+model. She was so artless, so merry, so frankly charmed with it all that
+Bertram could not find it in his heart to be angry, notwithstanding
+his annoyance. But when at four o'clock, she took herself and her cat
+cheerily up-stairs, he lifted his hands in despair.
+
+"Great Scott!" he groaned. "If this is a sample of what's coming--I'm
+GOING, that's all!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CYRIL TAKES HIS TURN
+
+
+Billy had been a member of the Beacon Street household a week before she
+repeated her visit to Cyril at the top of the house. This time Bertram
+was not with her. She went alone. Even Spunk was left behind--Billy
+remembered her prospective host's aversion to cats.
+
+Billy did not feel that she knew Cyril very well. She had tried several
+times to chat with him; but she had made so little headway, that she
+finally came to the conclusion--privately expressed to Bertram--that Mr.
+Cyril was bashful. Bertram had only laughed. He had laughed the harder
+because at that moment he could hear Cyril pounding out his angry
+annoyance on the piano upstairs--Cyril had just escaped from one of
+Billy's most determined "attempts," and Bertram knew it. Bertram's laugh
+had puzzled Billy--and it had not quite pleased her. Hence to-day she
+did not tell him of her plan to go up-stairs and see what she could do
+herself, alone, to combat this "foolish bashfulness" on the part of Mr.
+Cyril Henshaw.
+
+In spite of her bravery, Billy waited quite one whole minute at the top
+of the stairs before she had the courage to knock at Cyril's door.
+
+The door was opened at once.
+
+"Why--Billy!" cried the man in surprise.
+
+"Yes, it's Billy. I--I came up to--to get acquainted," she smiled
+winningly.
+
+"Why, er--you are very kind. Will you--come in?"
+
+"Thank you; yes. You see, I didn't bring Spunk. I--remembered."
+
+Cyril bowed gravely.
+
+"You are very kind--again," he said.
+
+Billy fidgeted in her chair. To her mind she was not "getting on" at
+all. She determined on a bold stroke.
+
+"You see, I thought if--if I should come up here, where there wouldn't
+be so many around, we might get acquainted," she confided; "then I would
+get to like you just as well as I do the others."
+
+At the odd look that came into the man's face, the girl realized
+suddenly what she had said. Her cheeks flushed a confused red.
+
+"Oh, dear! That is, I mean--I like you, of course," she floundered
+miserably; then she broke off with a frank laugh. "There! you see I
+never could get out of anything. I might as well own right up. I DON'T
+like you as well as I do Uncle William and Mr. Bertram. So there!"
+
+Cyril laughed. For the first time since he had seen Billy, something
+that was very like interest came into his eyes.
+
+"Oh, you don't," he retorted. "Now that is--er--very UNkind of you."
+
+Billy shook her head.
+
+"You don't say that as if you meant it," she accused him, her eyes
+gravely studying his face. "Now I'M in earnest. _I_ really want to like
+YOU!"
+
+"Thank you. Then perhaps you won't mind telling me why you don't like
+me," he suggested.
+
+Again Billy flushed.
+
+"Why, I--I just don't; that's all," she faltered. Then she cried
+aggrievedly: "There, now! you've made me be impolite; and I didn't mean
+to be, truly."
+
+"Of course not," assented the man; "and it wasn't impolite, because I
+asked you for the information, you know. I may conclude then," he went
+on with an odd twinkle in his eyes, "that I am merely classed with tripe
+and rainy days."
+
+"With--wha-at?"
+
+"Tripe and rainy days. Those are the only things, if I remember rightly,
+that you don't like."
+
+The girl stared; then she chuckled.
+
+"There! I knew I'd like you better if you'd only SAY something," she
+beamed. "But let's not talk any more about that. Play to me; won't you?
+You know you promised me 'The Maiden's Prayer.'"
+
+Cyril stiffened.
+
+"Pardon me, but you must be mistaken," he replied coldly. "I do not play
+'The Maiden's Prayer.'"
+
+"Oh, what a shame! And I do so love it! But you play other things;
+I've heard you a little, and Mr. Bertram says you do--in concerts and
+things."
+
+"Does he?" murmured Cyril, with a slight lifting of his eyebrows.
+
+"There! Now off you go again all silent and horrid!" chaffed Billy.
+"What have I said now? Mr. Cyril--do you know what I think? I believe
+you've got NERVES!" Billy's voice was so tragic that the man could but
+laugh.
+
+"Perhaps I have, Miss Billy."
+
+"Like Miss Letty's?"
+
+"I'm not acquainted with the lady."
+
+"Gee! wouldn't you two make a pair!" chuckled Billy unexpectedly. "No;
+but, really, I mean--do you want people to walk on tiptoe and speak in
+whispers?"
+
+"Sometimes, perhaps."
+
+The girl sprang to her feet--but she sighed.
+
+"Then I'm going. This might be one of the times, you know." She
+hesitated, then walked to the piano. "My, wouldn't I like to play on
+that!" she breathed.
+
+Cyril shuddered. Cyril could imagine what Billy would play--and Cyril
+did not like "rag-time," nor "The Storm."
+
+"Oh, do you play?" he asked constrainedly.
+
+Billy shook her head.
+
+"Not much. Only little bits of things, you know," she said wistfully, as
+she turned toward the door.
+
+For some minutes after she had gone, Cyril stood where she had left him,
+his eyes moody and troubled.
+
+"I suppose I might have played--something," he muttered at last;
+"but--'The Maiden's Prayer'!--good heavens!"
+
+Billy was a little shy with Cyril when he came down to dinner that
+night. For the next few days, indeed, she held herself very obviously
+aloof from him. Cyril caught himself wondering once if she were afraid
+of his "nerves." He did not try to find out, however; he was too
+emphatically content that of her own accord she seemed to be leaving him
+in peace.
+
+It must have been a week after Billy's visit to the top of the house
+that Cyril stopped his playing very abruptly one day, and opened his
+door to go down-stairs. At the first step he started back in amazement.
+
+"Why, Billy!" he ejaculated.
+
+The girl was sitting very near the top of the stairway. At his
+appearance she got to her feet shamefacedly.
+
+"Why, Billy, what in the world are you doing there?"
+
+"Listening."
+
+"Listening!"
+
+"Yes. Do you mind?"
+
+The man did not answer. He was too surprised to find words at once, and
+he was trying to recollect what he had been playing.
+
+"You see, listening to music this way isn't like listening to--to
+talking," hurried on Billy, feverishly. "It isn't sneaking like that; is
+it?"
+
+"Why--no."
+
+"And you don't mind?"
+
+"Why, surely, I ought not to mind--that," he admitted.
+
+"Then I can keep right on as I have done. Thank you," sighed Billy, in
+relief.
+
+"Keep right on! Have you been here before?"
+
+"Why, yes, lots of days. And, say, Mr. Cyril, what is that--that thing
+that's all chords with big bass notes that keep saying something so fine
+and splendid that it marches on and on, getting bigger and grander, just
+as if there couldn't anything stop it, until it all ends in one great
+burst of triumph? Mr. Cyril, what is that?"
+
+"Why, Billy!"--the interest this time in the man's face was not
+faint--"I wish I might make others catch my meaning as I have evidently
+made you do it! That's something of my own--that I'm writing, you
+understand; and I've tried to say--just what you say you heard."
+
+"And I did hear it--I did! Oh, won't you play it, please, with the door
+open?"
+
+"I can't, Billy. I'm sorry, indeed I am. But I've an appointment, and
+I'm late now. You shall hear it, though, I promise you, and with the
+door wide open," continued the man, as, with a murmured apology, he
+passed the girl and hurried down the stairs.
+
+Billy waited until she heard the outer hall door shut; then very softly
+she crept through Cyril's open doorway, and crossed the room to the
+piano.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+A SURPRISE ALL AROUND
+
+
+May came, and with it warm sunny days. There was a little balcony at the
+rear of the second floor, and on this Mrs. Stetson and Billy sat many a
+morning and sewed. There were occupations that Billy liked better than
+sewing; but she was dutiful, and she was really fond of Aunt Hannah; so
+she accepted as gracefully as possible that good lady's dictum that a
+woman who could not sew, and sew well, was no lady at all.
+
+One of the things that Billy liked to do so much better than to sew was
+to play on Cyril's piano. She was very careful, however, that Mr. Cyril
+himself did not find this out. Cyril was frequently gone from the house,
+and almost as frequently Aunt Hannah took naps. At such times it was
+very easy to slip up-stairs to Cyril's rooms, and once at the piano,
+Billy forgot everything else.
+
+One day, however, the inevitable happened: Cyril came home unexpectedly.
+The man heard the piano from William's floor, and with a surprised
+ejaculation he hurried upstairs two steps at a time. At the door he
+stopped in amazement.
+
+Billy was at the piano, but she was not playing "rag-time," "The Storm,"
+nor yet "The Maiden's Prayer." There was no music before her, but under
+her fingers "big bass notes" very much like Cyril's own, were marching
+on and on to victory. Billy's face was rapturously intent and happy.
+
+"By Jove--Billy!" gasped the man.
+
+Billy leaped to her feet and whirled around guiltily.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Cyril--I'm so sorry!"
+
+"Sorry!--and you play like that!"
+
+"No, no; I'm not sorry I played. It's because you--found me."
+
+Billy's cheeks were a shamed red, but her eyes were defiantly brilliant,
+and her chin was at a rebellious tilt. "I wasn't doing any--harm; not if
+you weren't here--with your NERVES!"
+
+The man laughed and came slowly into the room.
+
+"Billy, who taught you to play?"
+
+"No one. I can't play. I can only pick out little bits of things in C."
+
+"But you do play. I just heard you."
+
+Billy shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"That was nothing. It was only what I had heard. I was trying to make it
+sound like--yours."
+
+"And, by George! you succeeded," muttered Cyril under his breath; then
+aloud he asked: "Didn't you ever study music?"
+
+Billy's eyes dimmed.
+
+"No. That was the only thing Aunt Ella and I didn't think alike about.
+She had an old square piano, all tin-panny and thin, you know. I played
+some on it, and wanted to take lessons; but I didn't want to practise
+on that. I wanted a new one. That's what she wouldn't do--get me a new
+piano, or let me do it. She said SHE practised on that piano, and that
+it was quite good enough for me, especially to learn on. I--I'm afraid
+I got stuffy. I hated that piano so! But I was almost ready to give in
+when--when Aunt Ella died."
+
+"And all you play then is just by ear?"
+
+"By--ear? I suppose so--if you mean what I hear. Easy things I can play
+quick, but--but those chords ARE hard; they skip around so!"
+
+Cyril smiled oddly.
+
+"I should say so," he agreed. "But perhaps there is something else that
+I play--that you like. Is there?"
+
+"Oh, yes. Now there's that little thing that swings and sways like
+this," cried Billy, dropping herself on to the piano stool and whisking
+about. Billy was not afraid now, nor defiant. She was only eager and
+happy again. In a moment a dreamy waltz fell upon Cyril's ears--a waltz
+that he often played himself. It was not played correctly, it is true.
+There were notes, and sometimes whole measures, that were very different
+from the printed music. But the tune, the rhythm, and the spirit were
+there.
+
+"And there's this," said Billy; "and this," she went on, sliding into
+one little strain after another--all of which were recognized by the
+amazed man at her side.
+
+"Billy," he cried, when she had finished and whirled upon him again,
+"Billy, would you like to learn to play--really play from notes?"
+
+"Oh, wouldn't I!"
+
+"Then you shall! We'll have a piano tomorrow in your rooms for you to
+practise on. And--I'll teach you myself."
+
+"Oh, thank you, Mr. Cyril--you don't know how I thank you!" exulted
+Billy, as she danced from the room to tell Aunt Hannah of this great and
+good thing that had come into her life.
+
+To Billy, this promise of Cyril's to be her teacher was very kind, very
+delightful; but it was not in the least a thing at which to marvel. To
+Bertram, however, it most certainly was.
+
+"Well, guess what's happened," he said to William that night, after he
+had heard the news. "I'll believe anything now--anything: that you'll
+raffle off your collection of teapots at the next church fair, or that
+I shall go to Egypt as a 'Cooky' guide. Listen; Cyril is going to give
+piano lessons to Billy!--CYRIL!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+AUNT HANNAH SPEAKS HER MIND
+
+
+Bertram said that the Strata was not a strata any longer. He declared
+that between them, Billy and Spunk had caused such an upheaval that
+there was no telling where one stratum left off and another began. What
+Billy had not attended to, Spunk had, he said.
+
+"You see, it's like this," he explained to an amused friend one day.
+"Billy is taking piano lessons of Cyril, and she is posing for one of my
+heads. Naturally, then, such feminine belongings as fancy-work, thread,
+thimbles, and hairpins are due to show up at any time either in Cyril's
+apartments or mine--to say nothing of William's; and she's in William's
+lots--to look for Spunk, if for no other purpose.
+
+"You must know that Spunk likes William's floor the best of the bunch,
+there are so many delightful things to play with. Not that Spunk stays
+there--dear me, no. He's a sociable little chap, and his usual course is
+to pounce on a shelf, knock off some object that tickles his fancy,
+then lug it in his mouth to--well, anywhere that he happens to feel like
+going. Cyril has found him up-stairs with a small miniature, battered
+and chewed almost beyond recognition. And Aunt Hannah nearly had a fit
+one day when he appeared in her room with an enormous hard-shelled black
+bug--dead, of course--that he had fished from a case that Pete had left
+open. As for me, I can swear that the little round white stone he was
+playing with in my part of the house was one of William's Collection
+Number One.
+
+"And that isn't all," Bertram continued. "Billy brings her music down to
+show to me, and lugs my heads all over the rest of the house to show
+to other folks. And there is always everywhere a knit shawl, for Aunt
+Hannah is sure to feel a draught, and Billy keeps shawls handy. So there
+you are! We certainly aren't a strata any longer," he finished.
+
+Billy was, indeed, very much at home in the Beacon Street house--too
+much so, Aunt Hannah thought. Aunt Hannah was, in fact, seriously
+disturbed. To William one evening, late in May, she spoke her mind.
+
+"William, what are you going to do with Billy?" she asked abruptly.
+
+"Do with her? What do you mean?" returned William with the contented
+smile that was so often on his lips these days. "This is Billy's home."
+
+"That's the worst of it," sighed the woman, with a shake of her head.
+
+"The worst of it! Aunt Hannah, what do you mean? Don't you like Billy?"
+
+"Yes, yes, William, of course I like Billy. I love her! Who could help
+it? That's not what I mean. It's of Billy I'm thinking, and of the rest
+of you. She can't stay here like this. She must go away, to school,
+or--or somewhere."
+
+"And she's going in September," replied the man. "She'll go to
+preparatory school first, and to college, probably."
+
+"Yes, but now--right away. She ought to go--somewhere."
+
+"Why, yes, for the summer, of course. But those plans aren't completed
+yet. Billy and I were talking of it last evening. You know the boys are
+always away more or less, but I seldom go until August, and we let Pete
+and Dong Ling off then for a month and close the house. I told Billy I'd
+send you and her anywhere she liked for the whole summer, but she says
+no. She prefers to stay here with me. But I don't quite fancy that
+idea--through all the hot June and July--so I don't know but I'll get a
+cottage somewhere near at one of the beaches, where I can run back and
+forth night and morning. Of course, in that case, we take Pete and Dong
+Ling with us and close the house right away. I fear Cyril would not
+fancy it much; but, after all, he and Bertram would be off more or less.
+They always are in the summer."
+
+"But, William, you haven't yet got my idea at all," demurred Aunt
+Hannah, with a discouraged shake of her head. "It's away!--away from all
+this--from you--that I want to get Billy."
+
+"Away! Away from me," cried the man, with an odd intonation of terror,
+as he started forward in his chair. "Why, Aunt Hannah, what are you
+talking about?"
+
+"About Billy. This is no place in which to bring up a young girl--a
+young girl who has not one shred of relationship to excuse it."
+
+"But she is my namesake, and quite alone in the world, Aunt Hannah;
+quite alone--poor child!"
+
+"My dear William, that is exactly it--she is a child, and yet she is
+not. That's where the trouble lies."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"William, Billy has been brought up in a little country town with a
+spinster aunt and a whole good-natured, tolerant village for company.
+Well, she has accepted you and your entire household, even down to Dong
+Ling, on the same basis."
+
+"Well, I'm sure I'm glad," asserted the man with genial warmth. "It's
+good for us to have her here. It's good for the boys. She's already
+livened Cyril up and toned Bertram down. I may as well confess, Aunt
+Hannah, that I've been more than a little disturbed about Bertram of
+late. I don't like that Bob Seaver that he is so fond of; and some other
+fellows, too, that have been coming here altogether too much during
+the last year. Bertram says they're only a little 'Bohemian' in their
+tastes. And to me that's the worst of it, for Bertram himself is quite
+too much inclined that way."
+
+"Exactly, William. And that only goes to prove what I said before.
+Bertram is not a spinster aunt, and neither are any of the rest of you.
+But Billy takes you that way."
+
+"Takes us that way--as spinster aunts!"
+
+"Yes. She makes herself as free in this house as she was in her Aunt
+Ella's at Hampden Falls. She flies up to Cyril's rooms half a dozen
+times a day with some question about her lessons; and I don't know how
+long she'd sit at his feet and adoringly listen to his playing if he
+didn't sometimes get out of patience and tell her to go and practise
+herself. She makes nothing of tripping into Bertram's studio at all
+hours of the day; and he's sketched her head at every conceivable
+angle--which certainly doesn't tend to make Billy modest or retiring.
+As to you--you know how much she's in your rooms, spending evening after
+evening fussing over your collections."
+
+"I know; but we're--we're sorting them and making a catalogue," defended
+the man, anxiously. "Besides, I--I like to have her there. She doesn't
+bother me a bit."
+
+"No; I know she doesn't," replied Aunt Hannah, with a curious
+inflection. "But don't you see, William, that all this isn't going to
+quite do? Billy's too young--and too old."
+
+"Come, come, Aunt Hannah, is that exactly logical?"
+
+"It's true, at least."
+
+"But, after all, where's the harm? Don't you think that you are just a
+little bit too--fastidious? Billy's nothing but a care-free child."
+
+"It's the 'free' part that I object to, William. She has taken every one
+of you into intimate companionship--even Pete and Dong Ling."
+
+"Pete and Dong Ling!"
+
+"Yes." Mrs. Stetson's chin came up, and her nostrils dilated a little.
+"Billy went to Pete the other day to have him button her shirt-waist
+up in the back; and yesterday I found her down-stairs in the kitchen
+instructing Dong Ling how to make chocolate fudge!"
+
+William fell back in his chair.
+
+"Well, well," he muttered, "well, well! She is a child, and no mistake!"
+He paused, his brows drawn into a troubled frown. "But, Aunt Hannah,
+what CAN I do? Of course you could talk to her, but--I don't seem to
+quite like that idea."
+
+"My grief and conscience--no, no! That isn't what is needed at all.
+It would only serve to make her self-conscious; and that's her one
+salvation now--that she isn't self-conscious. You see, it's only the
+fault of her environment and training, after all. It isn't her heart
+that's wrong."
+
+"Indeed it isn't!"
+
+"It will be different when she is older--when she has seen a little more
+of the world outside Hampden Falls. She'll go to school, of course, and
+I think she ought to travel a little. Meanwhile, she mustn't live--just
+like this, though; certainly not for a time, at least."
+
+"No, no, I'm afraid not," agreed William, perplexedly, rising to his
+feet. "But we must think--what can be done." His step was even slower
+than usual as he left the room, and his eyes were troubled.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+WHAT BERTRAM CALLS "THE LIMIT"
+
+
+At half past ten o'clock on the evening following Mrs. Stetson's very
+plain talk with William, the telephone bell at the Beacon Street house
+rang sharply. Pete answered it.
+
+"Well?"--Pete never said "hello."
+
+"Hello. Is that you, Pete?" called Billy's voice agitatedly. "Is Uncle
+William there?"
+
+"No, Miss Billy."
+
+"Oh dear! Well, Mr. Cyril, then?"
+
+"He's out, too, Miss Billy. And Mr. Bertram--they're all out."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know HE'S out," almost sobbed Billy. "Dear, dear, what
+shall I do! Pete, you'll have to come. There isn't any other way!"
+
+"Yes, Miss; where?" Pete's voice was dubious, but respectful.
+
+"To the Boylston Street subway--on the Common, you know--North-bound
+side. I'll wait for you--but HURRY! You see, I'm all alone here."
+
+"Alone! Miss Billy--in the subway at this time of night! But, Miss
+Billy, you shouldn't--you can't--you mustn't--" stuttered the old man in
+helpless horror.
+
+"Yes, yes, Pete, but never mind; I am here! And I should think if 'twas
+such a dreadful thing you would hurry FAST to get here, so I wouldn't be
+alone," appealed Billy.
+
+With an inarticulate cry Pete jerked the receiver on to the hook, and
+stumbled away from the telephone. Five minutes later he had left the
+house and was hurrying through the Common to the Boylston Street subway
+station.
+
+Billy, a long cloak thrown over her white dress, was waiting for him.
+Her white slippers tapped the platform nervously, and her hair, under
+the light scarf of lace, fluffed into little broken curls as if it had
+been blown by the wind.
+
+"Miss Billy, Miss Billy, what can this mean?" gasped the man. "Where is
+Mrs. Stetson?"
+
+"At Mrs. Hartwell's--you know she is giving a reception to-night. But
+come, we must hurry! I'm after Mr. Bertram."
+
+"After Mr. Bertram!"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"Alone?--like this?"
+
+"But I'm not alone now; I have you. Don't you see?"
+
+At the blank stupefaction in the man's face, the girl sighed
+impatiently.
+
+"Dear me! I suppose I'll have to explain; but we're losing time--and we
+mustn't--we mustn't!" she cried feverishly. "Listen then, quick. It was
+at Mrs. Hartwell's tonight. I'd been watching Mr. Bertram. He was
+with that horrid Mr. Seaver, and I never liked him, never! I overheard
+something they said, about some place they were going to, and I didn't
+like what Mr. Seaver said. I tried to speak to Mr. Bertram, but I didn't
+get a chance; and the next thing I knew he'd gone with that Seaver man!
+I saw them just in time to snatch my cloak and follow them."
+
+"FOLLOW them! MISS BILLY!"
+
+"I had to, Pete; don't you see? There was no one else. Mr. Cyril and
+Uncle William had gone--home, I supposed. I sent back word by the maid
+to Aunt Hannah that I'd gone ahead; you know the carriage was ordered
+for eleven; but I'm afraid she won't have sense to tell Aunt Hannah, she
+looked so dazed and frightened when I told her. But I COULDN'T wait to
+say more. Well, I hurried out and caught up with Mr. Bertram just as
+they were crossing Arlington Street to the Garden. I'd heard them say
+they were going to walk, so I knew I could do it. But, Pete, after I got
+there, I didn't dare to speak--I didn't DARE to! So I just--followed.
+They went straight through the Garden and across the Common to Tremont
+Street, and on and on until they stopped and went down some stairs, all
+marble and lights and mirrors. 'Twas a restaurant, I think. I saw just
+where it was, then I flew back here to telephone for Uncle William. I
+knew HE could do something. But--well, you know the rest. I had to take
+you. Now come, quick; I'll show you."
+
+"But, Miss Billy, I can't! You mustn't; it's impossible," chattered old
+Pete. "Come, let me take ye home, Miss Billy, do!"
+
+"Home--and leave Mr. Bertram with that Seaver man? No, no!"
+
+"What CAN ye do?"
+
+"Do? I can get him to come home with me, of course."
+
+The old man made a despairing gesture and looked about him as if for
+help. He saw then the curious, questioning eyes on all sides; and with a
+quick change of manner, he touched Miss Billy's arm.
+
+"Yes; we'll go. Come," he apparently agreed. But once outside on the
+broad expanse before the Subway entrance he stopped again. "Miss Billy,
+please come home," he implored. "Ye don't know--ye can't know what yer
+a-doin'!"
+
+The girl tossed her head. She was angry now.
+
+"Pete, if you will not go with me I shall go alone. I am not afraid."
+
+"But the hour--the place--you, a young girl! Miss Billy!" remonstrated
+the old man agitatedly.
+
+"It isn't so very late. I've been out lots of times later than this
+at home. And as for the place, it's all light and bright, and lots of
+people were going in--ladies and gentlemen. Nothing could hurt me, Pete,
+and I shall go; but I'd rather you were with me. Why, Pete, we mustn't
+leave him. He isn't--he isn't HIMSELF, Pete. He--he's been DRINKING!"
+Billy's voice broke, and her face flushed scarlet. She was almost
+crying. "Come, you won't refuse now!" she finished, resolutely turning
+toward the street.
+
+And because old Pete could not pick her up bodily and carry her home,
+he followed close at her heels. At the head of the marble stairs "all
+lights and mirrors," however, he made one last plea.
+
+"Miss Billy, once more I beg of ye, won't ye come home? Ye don't know
+what yer a-doin', Miss Billy, ye don't--ye don't!"
+
+"I can't go home," persisted Billy. "I must get Mr. Bertram away from
+that man. Now come; we'll just stand at the door and look in until we
+see him. Then I'll go straight to him and speak to him." And with that
+she turned and ran down the steps.
+
+Billy blinked a little at the lights which, reflected in the great
+plate-glass mirrors, were a million dazzling points that found
+themselves again repeated in the sparkling crystal and glittering silver
+on the flower-decked tables. All about her Billy saw flushed-faced men,
+and bright-eyed women, laughing, chatting, and clinking together their
+slender-stemmed wine glasses. But nowhere, as she looked about her,
+could Billy descry the man she sought.
+
+The head waiter came forward with uplifted hand, but Billy did not see
+him. A girl at her left laughed disagreeably, and several men stared
+with boldly admiring eyes; but to them, too, Billy paid no heed. Then,
+halfway across the room she spied Bertram and Seaver sitting together at
+a small table alone.
+
+Simultaneously her own and Bertram's eyes met.
+
+With a sharp word under his breath Bertram sprang to his feet. His
+befogged brain had cleared suddenly under the shock of Billy's presence.
+
+"Billy, for Heaven's sake what are you doing here?" he demanded in a low
+voice, as he reached her side.
+
+"I came for you. I want you to go home with me, please, Mr. Bertram,"
+whispered Billy, pleadingly.
+
+The man had not waited for an answer to his question. With a deft
+touch he had turned Billy toward the door; and even as she finished
+her sentence she found herself in the marble hallway confronting Pete,
+pallid-faced, and shaking.
+
+"And you, too, Pete! Great Scott! what does this mean?" he exploded
+angrily.
+
+Pete could only shake his head and glance imploringly at Billy. His dry
+lips and tongue refused to articulate even one word.
+
+"We came--for--you," choked Billy. "You see, I don't like that Seaver
+man."
+
+"Well, by Jove! this is the limit!" breathed Bertram.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+KATE TAKES A HAND
+
+
+Undeniably Billy was in disgrace, and none knew it better than Billy
+herself. The whole family had contributed to this knowledge. Aunt Hannah
+was inexpressibly shocked; she had not breath even to ejaculate "My
+grief and conscience!" Kate was disgusted; Cyril was coldly reserved;
+Bertram was frankly angry; even William was vexed, and showed it. Spunk,
+too, as if in league with the rest, took this opportunity to display one
+of his occasional fits of independence; and when Billy, longing for some
+sort of comfort, called him to her, he settled back on his tiny haunches
+and imperturbably winked and blinked his indifference.
+
+Nearly all the family had had something to say to Billy on the matter,
+with not entirely satisfactory results, when Kate determined to see what
+she could do. She chose a time when she could have the girl quite to
+herself with small likelihood of interruption.
+
+"But, Billy, how could you do such an absurd thing?" she demanded. "The
+idea of leaving my house alone, at half-past ten at night, to follow a
+couple of men through the streets of Boston, and then with my brothers'
+butler make a scene like that in a--a public dining-room!"
+
+Billy sighed in a discouraged way.
+
+"Aunt Kate, can't I make you and the rest of them understand that I
+didn't start out to do all that? I meant just to speak to Mr. Bertram,
+and get him away from that man."
+
+"But, my dear child, even that was bad enough!"
+
+Billy lifted her chin.
+
+"You don't seem to think, Aunt Kate; Mr. Bertram was--was not sober."
+
+"All the more reason then why you should NOT have done what you did!"
+
+"Why, Aunt Kate, you wouldn't leave him alone in that condition with
+that man!"
+
+It was Mrs. Hartwell's turn to sigh.
+
+"But, Billy," she contested, wearily, "can't you understand that it
+wasn't YOUR place to interfere--you, a young girl?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't see what difference that makes. I was the only one
+that could do it! Besides, afterward, I did try to get some one else,
+Uncle William and Mr. Cyril. But when I found I couldn't get them, I
+just had to do it alone--that is, with Pete."
+
+"Pete!" scoffed Mrs. Hartwell. "Pete, indeed!"
+
+Billy's head came up with a jerk. Billy was very angry now.
+
+"Aunt Kate, it seems I've done a very terrible thing, but I'm sure I
+don't see it that way. I wasn't afraid, and I wasn't in the least bit of
+danger anywhere. I knew my way perfectly, and I did NOT make any 'scene'
+in that restaurant. I just asked Mr. Bertram to come home with me. One
+would think you WANTED Mr. Bertram to go off with that man and--and
+drink too much. But Uncle William hasn't liked him before, not one bit!
+I've heard him talk about him--that Mr. Seaver."
+
+Mrs. Hartwell raised both her hands, palms outward.
+
+"Billy, it is useless to talk with you. You are quite impossible. It is
+even worse than I expected!" she cried, with wrathful impatience.
+
+"Worse than you--expected? What do you mean, please?"
+
+"Worse than I thought it would be--before you came. The idea of those
+five men taking a girl to bring up!"
+
+Billy sat very still. She was even holding her breath, though Mrs.
+Hartwell did not know that.
+
+"You mean--that they did not--want me?" she asked quietly, so quietly
+that Mrs. Hartwell did not realize the sudden tension behind the words.
+For that matter, Mrs. Hartwell was too angry now to realize anything
+outside of herself.
+
+"Want you! Billy, it is high time that you understand just how things
+are, and have been, at the house; then perhaps you will conduct yourself
+with an eye a little more to other people's comfort. Can you imagine
+three young men like my brothers WANTING to take a strange young woman
+into their home to upset everything?"
+
+"To--upset--everything!" echoed Billy, faintly. "And have I done--that?"
+
+"Of course you have! How could you help it? To begin with, they thought
+you were a boy, and that was bad enough; but William was so anxious
+to do right by his dead friend that he insisted upon taking you, much
+against the will of all the rest of us. Oh, I know this isn't pleasant
+for you to hear," admitted Mrs. Hartwell, in response to the dismayed
+expression in Billy's eyes; "but I think it's high time you realize
+something of what those men have sacrificed for you. Now, to resume.
+When they found you were a girl, what did they do? Did they turn you
+over to some school or such place, as they should have done? Certainly
+not! William would not hear of it. He turned Bertram out of his rooms,
+put you into them, and established Aunt Hannah as chaperon and me as
+substitute until she arrived. But because, through it all, he smiled
+blandly, you have been blind to the whole thing.
+
+"And what is the result? His entire household routine is shattered to
+atoms. You have accepted the whole house as if it were your own.
+You take Cyril's time to teach you music, and Bertram's to teach you
+painting, without a thought of what it means to them. There! I suppose
+I ought not to have said all this, but I couldn't help it, Billy. And
+surely now, NOW you appreciate a little more what your coming to this
+house has meant, and what my brothers have done for you."
+
+"I do, certainly," said Billy, still in that voice that was so oddly
+smooth and emotionless.
+
+"And you'll try to be more tractable, less headstrong, less assertive of
+your presence?"
+
+The girl sprang to her feet now.
+
+"More tractable! Less assertive of my presence!" she cried. "Mrs.
+Hartwell, do you mean to say you think I'd STAY after what you've told
+me?"
+
+"Stay? Why, of course you'll stay! Don't be silly, child. I didn't tell
+you this to make you go. I only wanted you to understand how things
+were--and are."
+
+"And I do understand--and I'm going."
+
+Mrs. Hartwell frowned. Her face changed color.
+
+"Come, come, Billy, this is nonsense. William wants you here. He would
+never forgive me if anything I said should send you away. You must not
+be angry with, him."
+
+Billy turned now like an enraged little tigress.
+
+"Angry with him! Why, I love him--I love them all! They are the dearest
+men ever, and they've been so good to me!" The girl's voice broke a
+little, then went on with a more determined ring. "Do you think I'd have
+them know why I'm going?--that I'd hurt them like that? Never!"
+
+"But, Billy, what are you going to do?"
+
+"I don't know. I've got to plan it out. I only know now that I'm going,
+sure!" And with a choking little cry Billy ran from the room.
+
+In her own chamber a minute later the tears fell unrestrained.
+
+"It's home--all the home there is--anywhere!" she sobbed. "But it's got
+to go--it's got to go!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+A PINK-RIBBON TRAIL
+
+
+Mrs. Stetson wore an air of unmistakable relief as she stepped into
+William's sitting-room. Even her knock at the half-open door had sounded
+almost triumphant.
+
+"William, it does seem as if Fate itself had intervened to help us
+out," she began delightedly. "Billy, of her own accord, came to me this
+morning, and said that she wanted to go away with me for a little trip.
+So you see that will make it easier for us."
+
+"Good! That is fortunate, indeed," cried William; but his voice did not
+carry quite the joy that his words expressed. "I have been disturbed
+ever since your remarks the other day," he continued wearily; "and of
+course her extraordinary escapade the next evening did not help matters
+any. It is better, I know, that she shouldn't be here--for a time.
+Though I shall miss her terribly. But, tell me, what is it--what does
+she want to do?"
+
+"She says she guesses she is homesick for Hampden Falls; that she'd
+like to go back there for a few weeks this summer if I'll go with her.
+The--the dear child seems suddenly to have taken a great fancy to me,"
+explained Aunt Hannah, unsteadily. "I never saw her so affectionate."
+
+"She is a dear girl--a very dear girl; and she has a warm heart."
+William cleared his throat sonorously, but even that did not clear
+his voice. "It was her heart that led her wrong the other night," he
+declared. "Hers was a brave and fearless act--but a very unwise one.
+Much as I deplore Bertram's intimacy with Seaver, I should hesitate to
+take the course marked out by Billy. Bertram is not a child. But tell me
+more of this trip of yours. How did Billy happen to suggest it?"
+
+"I don't know. I noticed yesterday that she seemed strangely
+silent--unhappy, in fact. She sat alone in her room the greater part of
+the day, and I could not get her out of it. But this morning she came to
+my door as bright as the sun itself and made me the proposition I told
+you of. She says her aunt's house is closed, awaiting its sale; but that
+she would like to open it for awhile this summer, if I'd like to go.
+Naturally, you can understand that I'd very quickly fall in with a plan
+like that--one which promised so easily to settle our difficulties."
+
+"Yes, of course, of course," muttered William. "It is very fine, very
+fine indeed," he concluded. And again his voice failed quite to match
+his words in enthusiasm.
+
+"Then I'll go and begin to see to my things," murmured Mrs. Stetson,
+rising to her feet. "Billy seems anxious to get away."
+
+Billy did, indeed, seem anxious to get away. She announced her intended
+departure at once to the family. She called it a visit to her old home,
+and she seemed very glad in her preparations. If there was anything
+forced in this gayety, no one noticed it, or at least, no one spoke of
+it. The family saw very little of Billy, indeed, these days. She said
+that she was busy; that she had packing to do. She stopped taking
+lessons of Cyril, and visited Bertram's studio only once during the
+whole three days before she went away, and then merely to get some
+things that belonged to her. On the fourth day, almost before the family
+realized what was happening, she was gone; and with her had gone Mrs.
+Stetson and Spunk.
+
+The family said they liked it--the quiet, the freedom. They said they
+liked to be alone--all but William. He said nothing.
+
+And yet--
+
+When Bertram went to his studio that morning he did not pick up his
+brushes until he had sat for long minutes before the sketch of a
+red-cheeked, curly-headed young girl whose eyes held a peculiarly
+wistful appeal; and Cyril, at his piano up-stairs, sat with idle fingers
+until they finally drifted into a simple little melody--the last thing
+Billy had been learning.
+
+It was Pete who brought in the kitten; and Billy had been gone a whole
+week then.
+
+"The poor little beast was cryin' at the alleyway door, sir," he
+explained. "I--I made so bold as to bring him in."
+
+"Of course," said William. "Did you feed it?"
+
+"Yes, sir; Ling did."
+
+There was a pause, then Pete spoke, diffidently.
+
+"I thought, sir, if ye didn't mind, I'd keep it. I'll try to see that it
+stays down-stairs, sir, out of yer way."
+
+"That's all right, Pete; keep it, by all means, by all means," approved
+William.
+
+"Thank ye, sir. Ye see, it's a stray. It hasn't got any home. And, did
+ye notice, sir? it looks like Spunk."
+
+"Yes, I noticed," said William, stirring with sudden restlessness. "I
+noticed."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Pete. And he turned and carried the small gray cat
+away.
+
+The new kitten did not stay down-stairs. Pete tried, it is true, to keep
+his promise to watch it; but after he had seen the little animal
+carried surreptitiously up-stairs in Mr. William's arms, he relaxed
+his vigilance. Some days later the kitten appeared with a huge pink bow
+behind its ears, somewhat awkwardly tied, if it must be confessed.
+Where it came from, or who put it there was not known--until one day the
+kitten was found in the hall delightedly chewing at the end of what had
+been a roll of pink ribbon. Up the stairs led a trail of pink ribbon and
+curling white paper--and the end of the trail was in William's room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+BILLY WRITES ANOTHER LETTER
+
+
+By the middle of June only William and the gray kitten were left with
+Pete and Dong Ling in the Beacon Street house. Cyril had sailed for
+England, and Bertram had gone on a sketching trip with a friend.
+
+To William the house this summer was unusually lonely; indeed, he found
+the silent, deserted rooms almost unbearable. Even the presence of the
+little gray cat served only to accentuate the loneliness--it reminded
+him of Billy.
+
+William missed Billy. He owned that now even to Pete. He said that he
+would be glad when she came back. To himself he said that he wished he
+had not fallen in quite so readily with Aunt Hannah's notion of getting
+the child away. It was all nonsense, he declared. All she needed was a
+little curbing and directing, both of which could just as well have been
+done there at home. But she had gone, and it could not be helped now.
+The only thing left for him to do was to see that it did not occur
+again. When Billy came back she should stay, except for necessary
+absences for school, of course. All this William settled in his own mind
+quite to his own satisfaction, entirely forgetting, strange to say, that
+it had been Billy's own suggestion that she go away.
+
+Very promptly William wrote to Billy. He told her how he missed her, and
+said that he had stopped trying to sort and catalogue his collections
+until she should be there to help him. He told her, too, after a time,
+of the gray kitten, "Spunkie," that looked so much like Spunk.
+
+In reply he received plump white envelopes directed in the round,
+schoolboy hand that he remembered so well. In the envelopes were
+letters, cheery and entertaining, like Billy herself. They thanked him
+for all his many kindnesses, and they told him something of what Billy
+was doing. They showed unbounded interest in the new kitten, and in all
+else that William wrote about; but they hinted very plainly that he had
+better not wait for her to help him out on the catalogue, for it would
+soon be autumn, and she would be in school.
+
+William frowned at this, and shook his head; yet he knew that it was
+true.
+
+In August William closed the Beacon street house and went to the
+Rangeley Lakes on a camping trip. He told himself that he would not
+go had it not been for a promise given to an old college friend months
+before. True, he had been anticipating this trip all winter; but it
+occurred to him now that it would be much more interesting to go to
+Hampden Falls and see Billy. He had been to the Rangeley Lakes, and he
+had not been to Hampden Falls; besides, there would be Ned Harding and
+those queer old maids with their shaded house and socketed chairs to
+see. In short, to William, at the moment, there seemed no place quite
+so absorbingly interesting as was Hampden Falls. But he went to the
+Rangeley Lakes.
+
+In September Cyril came back from Europe, and Bertram from the
+Adirondacks where he had been spending the month of August. William
+already had arrived, and with Pete and Dong Ling had opened the house.
+
+"Where's Billy? Isn't Billy here?" demanded Bertram.
+
+"No. She isn't back yet," replied William.
+
+"You don't mean to say she's stayed up there all summer!" exclaimed
+Cyril.
+
+"Why, yes, I--I suppose so," hesitated William. "You see, I haven't
+heard but once for a month. I've been down in Maine, you know."
+
+William wrote to Billy that night.
+
+"My dear:--" he said in part. "I hope you'll come home right away. We
+want to see SOMETHING of you before you go away again, and you know the
+schools will be opening soon.
+
+"By the way, it has just occurred to me as I write that perhaps, after
+all, you won't have to go quite away. There are plenty of good schools
+for young ladies right in and near Boston, which I am sure you could
+attend, and still live at home. Suppose you come back then as soon as
+you can, and we'll talk it up. And that reminds me, I wonder how Spunk
+will get along with Spunkie. Spunkie has been boarding out all August at
+a cat home, but he seems glad to get back to us. I am anxious to see the
+two little chaps together, just to find out how much alike they really
+do look."
+
+Very promptly came Billy's answer; but William's face, after he had read
+the letter, was almost as blank as it had been on that April day when
+Billy's first letter came--though this time for a far different reason.
+
+"Why, boys, she--isn't--coming," he announced in dismay.
+
+"Isn't coming!" ejaculated two astonished Voices.
+
+"No."
+
+"Not--at--ALL?"
+
+"Why, of course, later," retorted William, with unwonted sharpness. "But
+not now. This is what she says." And he read aloud:
+
+
+"DEAR UNCLE WILLIAM:--You poor dear man! Did you think I'd really let
+you spend your time and your thought over hunting up a school for me,
+after all the rest you have done for me? Not a bit of it! Why, Aunt
+Hannah and I have been buried under school catalogues all summer, and
+I have studied them all until I know just which has turkey dinners
+on Sundays, and which ice cream at least twice a week. And it's all
+settled, too, long ago. I'm going to a girls' school up the Hudson a
+little way--a lovely place, I'm sure, from the pictures of it.
+
+"Oh, and another thing; I shall go right from here. Two girls at Hampden
+Falls are going, and I shall go with them. Isn't that a fine chance
+for me? You see it would never do, anyway, for me to go alone--me, a
+'Billy'--unless I sent a special courier ahead to announce that 'Billy'
+was a girl.
+
+"Aunt Hannah has decided to stay here this winter in the old house. She
+likes it ever so much, and I don't think I shall sell the place just
+yet, anyway. She will go back, of course, to Boston (after I've gone)
+to get some things at the house that she'll want, and also to do some
+shopping. But she'll let you know when she'll be there.
+
+"I'll write more later, but just now I'm in a terrible rush. I only
+write this note to set your poor heart at rest about having to hunt up a
+school for me.
+
+"With love to all,
+
+"BILLY."
+
+
+As had happened once before after a letter from Billy had been read,
+there was a long pause.
+
+"Well, by Jove!" breathed Bertram.
+
+"It's very sensible, I'm sure," declared Cyril. "Still, I must confess,
+I would have liked to pick out her piano teacher for her."
+
+William said nothing--perhaps because he was reading Billy's letter
+again.
+
+At eight o'clock that night Bertram tapped on Cyril's door.
+
+"What's the trouble?" demanded Cyril in answer to the look on the
+other's face.
+
+Bertram lifted his eyebrows oddly.
+
+"I'm not sure whether you'll call it 'trouble' or not," he replied; "but
+I think it's safe to say that Billy is gone--for good."
+
+"For good! What do you mean?--that she's not coming back--ever?"
+
+"Exactly that."
+
+"Nonsense! What's put that notion into your head?"
+
+"Billy's letter first; after that, Pete."
+
+"Pete!"
+
+"Yes. He came to me a few minutes ago, looking as if he had seen a
+ghost. It seems he swept Billy's rooms this morning and put them in
+order against her coming; and tonight William told him that she wouldn't
+be here at present. Pete came straight to me. He said he didn't dare
+tell Mr. William, but he'd got to tell some one: there wasn't one
+single thing of Miss Billy's left in her rooms nor anywhere else in the
+house--not so much as a handkerchief or a hairpin."
+
+"Hm-m; that does look--suspicious," murmured Cyril. "What's up, do you
+think?"
+
+"Don't know; but something, sure. Still, of course we may be wrong.
+We won't say anything to Will about it, anyhow. Poor old chap, 'twould
+worry him, specially if he thought Billy's feelings had been hurt."
+
+"Hurt?--nonsense! Why, we did everything for her--everything!"
+
+"Yes, I know--and she tried to do EVERYTHING for us, too," retorted
+Bertram, quizzically, as he turned away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+SEEING BILLY OFF
+
+
+Early in October Mrs. Stetson arrived at the Beacon Street house, but
+she did not stay long.
+
+"I've come for just a few things I want, and to do some shopping," she
+explained.
+
+"But Aunt Hannah," remonstrated William, "what is the meaning of this?
+Why are you staying up there at Hampden Falls?"
+
+"I like it there, William; and why shouldn't I stay? Surely there's no
+need for me to be here now, with Billy away!"
+
+"But Billy's coming back!"
+
+"Of course she's coming back," laughed Aunt Hannah, "but not this
+winter, certainly. Why, William, what's the matter? I'm sure, I think
+it's a beautiful arrangement. Why, don't you remember? It's just what we
+said we wanted--to keep Billy away for awhile. And the best part of it
+is, it's her own idea from the start."
+
+"Yes, I know, I know," frowned William: "but I'm not sure, after all,
+that that idea of ours wasn't a mistake,--a mistake that she needed to
+get away."
+
+"Never! We were just right about it," declared Aunt Hannah, with
+conviction.
+
+"And is Billy--happy?"
+
+"She seems to be."
+
+"Hm-m; well, THAT'S good," said William, as he turned to go up to his
+room. But as he climbed the stairs he sighed; and to hear him, one would
+have thought it anything but good to him--that Billy was happy.
+
+One by one the weeks passed. Mrs. Stetson had long since gone back to
+Hampden Falls; and Bertram said that the Strata was beginning to look
+natural again. There remained now, indeed, only Spunkie, the small gray
+cat, to remind any one of the days that were gone--though, to be sure,
+there were Billy's letters, if they might be called a reminder.
+
+Billy did not write often. She said that she was "too busy to breathe."
+Such letters as did come from her were addressed to William, though they
+soon came to be claimed by the entire family. Bertram and Cyril frankly
+demanded that William read them aloud; and even Pete always contrived to
+have some dusting or "puttering" within earshot--a subterfuge quite well
+understood, but never reproved by any of the brothers.
+
+When the Christmas vacation drew near, William wrote that he hoped
+Billy and Aunt Hannah would spend it with them; but Billy answered that
+although she appreciated their kindness and thanked them for it, yet she
+must decline their invitation, as she had already invited several of the
+girls to go home with her to Hampden Falls for a country Christmas.
+
+For the Easter vacation William was even more insistent--but so was
+Billy: she had already accepted an invitation to go home with one of
+the girls, and she did not think it would be at all polite to change her
+plans now.
+
+William fretted not a little. Even Cyril and Bertram said that it was
+"too bad"; that they themselves would like to see the girl--so they
+would!
+
+It was in the spring, at the close of school, however, that the heaviest
+blow fell: Billy was not coming to Boston even then. She wrote that she
+and Aunt Hannah were going to "run across the water for a little trip
+through the British Isles"; and that their passage was already engaged.
+
+"And so you see," she explained, "I shall not have a minute to spare.
+There'll be only time to skip home for Aunt Hannah, and to pack the
+trunks before it'll be time to start."
+
+Bertram looked at Cyril significantly when this letter was read aloud;
+and afterward he muttered in Cyril's ear:
+
+"You see! It's Hampden Falls she calls 'home' now--not the Strata."
+
+"Yes, I see," frowned Cyril. "It does look suspicious."
+
+Two days before the date of Billy's expected sailing, William announced
+at the breakfast table that he was going away on business; might be gone
+until the end of the week.
+
+"You don't say," commented Bertram. "I'M going to-morrow, but I'm coming
+back in a couple of days."
+
+"Hm-m;" murmured William, abstractedly. "Oh, well, I may be back before
+the end of the week."
+
+Only one meal did Cyril eat alone after his brothers had gone; then he
+told Pete that he had decided to take the night boat for New York. There
+was a little matter that called him there, he said, and he believed the
+trip by water would be a pleasure, the night was so fine and warm.
+
+In New York Cyril had little trouble in finding Billy, as he knew the
+steamship she was to take.
+
+"I thought as long as I was in New York to-day I'd just come and say
+good-by to you and Aunt Hannah," he informed her, with an evident aim
+toward making his presence appear to be casual.
+
+"That was good of you!" exclaimed Billy. "And how are Uncle William and
+Mr. Bertram?"
+
+"Very well, I fancy, though they weren't there when I left," replied the
+man.
+
+"Oh!--gone away?"
+
+"Yes. A little matter of business they said; but--well, by Jove!" he
+broke off, his gaze on a familiar figure hurrying at that moment toward
+them. "There's William now!"
+
+William, with no eyes but for Billy, came rapidly forward.
+
+"Well, well, Billy! I thought as long as I happened to be in New York
+to-day I'd just run down to the boat and see you and Aunt Hannah off,
+and wish--CYRIL! Where did YOU come from?"
+
+Billy laughed.
+
+"He just happened to be in town, too, Uncle William, like you," she
+explained. "And I'm sure I think it's lovely of you to be so kind. Aunt
+Hannah'll be up right away. She went down to the stateroom to--" This
+time it was Billy who stopped abruptly. The two men facing her could not
+see what she saw, and not until their brother Bertram's merry greeting
+fell on their ears did they understand her sudden silence.
+
+"And is this the way you meant to run away from us, young lady?" cried
+Bertram. "Not so fast! You see, I happened to be in New York this
+morning, and so I--" Something in Billy's face sent a pause to his words
+just as his eyes spied the two men at the girl's side. For a moment he
+stared dumbly; then he gave a merry gesture of defeat.
+
+"It's all up! I might as well confess. I'VE been planning this thing for
+three weeks, Billy, ever since your letter came, in fact. As for my two
+fellow-sinners here, I'll wager they weren't two days behind me in their
+planning. So now, own up, boys!"
+
+William and Cyril, however, did not have to "own up." Mrs. Stetson
+appeared at the moment and created, for them, a very welcome diversion.
+
+Long minutes later, when the good-byes had become nothing but a flutter
+of white handkerchiefs from deck to shore, and shore to deck, William
+drew a long sigh.
+
+"That's a nice little girl, boys, a nice little girl!" he exclaimed. "I
+declare! I didn't suppose I'd mind so much her going so far away."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+BILLY, THE MYTH
+
+
+To all appearances it came about very naturally that Billy did
+not return to America for some time. During the summer she wrote
+occasionally to William, and gave glowing accounts of their travels.
+Then in September came the letter telling him that they had concluded to
+stay through the winter in Paris. Billy wrote that she had decided not
+to go to college. She would take up some studies there in Paris, she
+said, but she would devote herself more particularly to her music.
+
+When the next summer came there was still something other than America
+to claim her attention: the Calderwells had invited her to cruise with
+them for three months. Their yacht was a little floating palace of
+delight, Billy declared, not to mention the charm of the unknown lands
+and waters that she and Aunt Hannah would see.
+
+Of all this Billy wrote to William--at occasional intervals--but she did
+not come home. Even when the next autumn came, there was still Paris to
+detain her for another long winter of study.
+
+In the Henshaw house on Beacon Street, William mourned not a little as
+each recurring season brought no Billy.
+
+"The idea! It's just as if one didn't have a namesake!" he fumed.
+
+"Well, did you have one?" Bertram demanded one day. "Really, Will, I'm
+beginning to think she's a myth. Long years ago, from the first of
+April till June we did have two frolicsome sprites here that announced
+themselves as 'Billy' and 'Spunk,' I'll own. And a year later, by ways
+devious and secret, we three managed to see the one called 'Billy' off
+on a great steamship. Since then, what? A word--a message--a scrap of
+paper. Billy's a myth, I say!"
+
+William sighed.
+
+"Sometimes I don't know but you are right," he admitted. "Why, it'll
+be three years next June since Billy was here. She must be nearly
+twenty-one--and we know almost nothing about her."
+
+"That's so. I wonder--" Bertram paused, and laughed a little, "I wonder
+if NOW she'd play guardian angel to me through the streets of Boston."
+
+William threw a keen glance into his brother's face.
+
+"I don't believe it would be quite necessary, NOW, Bert," he said
+quietly.
+
+The other flushed a little, but his eyes softened.
+
+"Maybe not, Will; still--one can always find some use for--a guardian
+angel, you know," he finished, almost under his breath.
+
+To Cyril Bertram had occasionally spoken, during the last two years,
+of their first suspicions concerning Billy's absence. They speculated
+vaguely, too, as to why she had gone, and if she would ever come back;
+and they wondered if anything could have wounded her and sent her away.
+To William they said nothing of all this, however; though they agreed
+that they would have asked Kate for her opinion, had she been there.
+But Kate was not there. As it chanced, a good business opportunity had
+called Kate's husband to a Western town very soon after Billy herself
+had gone to Hampden Falls; and since the family's removal to the West,
+Mrs. Hartwell had not once returned to Boston.
+
+It was in April, three years since Billy's first appearance in the
+Beacon Street house, that Bertram met his friend, Hugh Calderwell, on
+the street one afternoon, and brought him home to dinner.
+
+Hugh Calderwell was a youth who, Bertram said, had been born with a
+whole dozen silver spoons in his mouth. And, indeed, it would seem so,
+if present prosperity were any indication. He was a good-looking young
+fellow with a frank manliness that appealed to men, and a deferential
+chivalry that appealed to women; a combination that brought him many
+friends--and some enemies. With plenty of money to indulge a passion
+for traveling, young Calderwell had spent the most of his time since
+graduation in daring trips into the heart of almost impenetrable
+forests, or to the top of almost inaccessible mountains, with an
+occasional more ordinary trip to give variety. He had now come to the
+point, however, where he was determined to "settle down to something
+that meant something," he told the Henshaws, as the four men smoked in
+Bertram's den after dinner.
+
+"Yes, sir, I have," he iterated. "And, by the way, the little girl
+that has set me to thinking in such good earnest is a friend of yours,
+too,--Miss Neilson. I met her in Paris. She was on our yacht all last
+summer."
+
+Three men sat suddenly erect in their chairs.
+
+"Billy?" cried three voices. "Do you know Billy?"
+
+"To be sure! And you do, too, she says."
+
+"Oh, no, we don't," disputed Bertram, emphatically. "But we WISH we
+did!"
+
+His guest laughed.
+
+"Well, I fancy you DO know her, or you wouldn't have answered like
+that," he retorted. "For you just begin to know Miss Billy when you find
+out that you DON'T know her. She is a charming girl--a very charming
+girl."
+
+"She is my namesake," announced William, in what Bertram called his
+"finest ever" voice that he used only for the choicest bits in his
+collections.
+
+"Yes, she told me," smiled Calderwell. "'Billy' for 'William.' Odd
+idea, too, but clever. It helps to distinguish her even more--though she
+doesn't need it, for that matter."
+
+"'Doesn't need it,'" echoed William in a puzzled voice.
+
+"No. Perhaps you don't know, Mr. Henshaw, but Miss Billy is a very
+popular young woman. You have reason to be proud of your namesake."
+
+"I have always been that," declared William, with just a touch of
+hauteur.
+
+"Tell us about her," begged Bertram. "You remember I said that we wished
+we did know her."
+
+Calderwell smiled.
+
+"I don't believe, after all, that you do know much about her," he began
+musingly. "Billy is not one who talks much of herself, I fancy, in her
+letters."
+
+William frowned. This time there was more than a touch of hauteur in his
+voice.
+
+"MISS NEILSON is not one to show vanity anywhere," he said, with
+suggestive emphasis on the name.
+
+"Indeed she isn't," agreed Calderwell, heartily. "She is a fine
+girl--quite one of the finest I know, in fact."
+
+There was an uncomfortable silence. Over in the corner Cyril puffed at
+his cigar with an air almost of boredom. He had not spoken since his
+first surprised questioning with the others, "Do you know Billy?"
+William was still frowning. Even Bertram wore a look that was not quite
+satisfied.
+
+"Miss Neilson has spent two winters in Paris now, you know," resumed
+Calderwell, after a moment; "and she is very popular both with
+the American colony, and with the other students. As for her 'Aunt
+Hannah'--they all make a pet of her; but that is, perhaps, because Billy
+herself is so devoted."
+
+Again William frowned at the familiar "Billy"; but Calderwell talked on
+unheeding.
+
+"After all, I'm not sure but some of us regard 'Aunt Hannah' with scant
+favor, occasionally," he laughed; "something as if she were the dragon
+that guarded the princess, you know. Miss Billy IS popular with the men,
+and she has suitors enough to turn any girl's head--but her own."
+
+"Suitors!" cried William, plainly aghast. "Why, Billy's nothing but a
+child!"
+
+Calderwell gave an odd smile.
+
+"How long is it since you've seen--Miss Neilson?" he asked.
+
+"Two years."
+
+"And then only for a few minutes just before she sailed," amended
+Bertram. "We haven't really seen much of her since three years ago."
+
+"Hm-m; well, you'll see for yourself soon. You know she's coming home
+next month."
+
+Not one of the brothers did know it--but not one of them intended that
+Calderwell should find out that they did not.
+
+"Yes, she's coming home," said William, lifting his chin a little.
+
+"Oh, yes, next month," added Bertram, nonchalantly.
+
+Even Cyril across the room was not to be outdone.
+
+"Yes. Miss Neilson comes home next month," he said.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+BILLY, THE REALITY
+
+
+Very early in May came the cheery letter from Billy herself announcing
+the news of her intended return.
+
+"And I shall be so glad to see you all," she wrote in closing. "It seems
+so long since I left America." Then she signed her name with "kindest
+regards to all"--Billy did not send "love to all" any more.
+
+William at once began to make plans for his namesake's comfort.
+
+"But, Will, she didn't say she was coming here," Bertram reminded him.
+
+"She didn't need to," smiled William, confidently. "She just took it for
+granted, of course. This is her home."
+
+"But it hasn't been--for years. She's called Hampden Falls 'home.'"
+
+"I know, but that was before," demurred William, his eyes a little
+anxious. "Besides, they've sold the house now, you know. There's nowhere
+for her to go but here, Bertram."
+
+"All right," acquiesced the younger man, still doubtingly. "Maybe that's
+so; maybe! But--" he did not finish his sentence, and his eyes were
+troubled as he watched his brother begin to rearrange Billy's rooms.
+In time, however, so sure was William of Billy's return to the Beacon
+Street house, that Bertram ceased to question; and, with almost as much
+confidence as William himself displayed, he devoted his energies to the
+preparations for Billy's arrival.
+
+And what preparations they were! Even Cyril helped this time to the
+extent of placing on Billy's piano a copy of his latest book, and a pile
+of new music. Nor were the melodies that floated down from the upper
+floor akin to funeral marches; they were perilously near to being allied
+to "ragtime."
+
+At last everything was ready. There was not one more bit of dust to
+catch Pete's eye, nor one more adornment that demanded William's careful
+hand to adjust. In Billy's rooms new curtains graced the windows and new
+rugs the floors. In Mrs. Stetson's, too, similar changes had been made.
+The latest and best "Face of a Girl" smiled at one from above
+Billy's piano, and the very rarest of William's treasures adorned the
+mantelpiece. No guns nor knives nor fishing-rods met the eyes now.
+Instead, at every turn, there was a hint of feminine tastes: a mirror, a
+workbasket, a low sewing-chair, a stand with a tea tray. And everywhere
+were roses, up-stairs and down-stairs, until the air was heavy with
+their perfume. In the dining-room Pete was again "swinging back and
+forth like a pendulum," it is true; but it was a cheerful pendulum
+to-day, anxious only that no time should be lost. In the kitchen alone
+was there unhappiness, and there because Dong Ling had already spoiled
+a whole cake of chocolate in a vain attempt to make Billy's favorite
+fudge. Even Spunkie, grown now to be sleek, lazy, and majestically
+indifferent, was in holiday attire, for a brand-new pink bow of huge
+dimensions adorned his fat neck--for the first time in many months.
+
+"You see," William had explained to Bertram, "I put on that ribbon again
+because I thought it would make Spunkie seem more homelike, and more
+like Spunk. You know there wasn't anything Billy missed so much as that
+kitten when she went abroad. Aunt Hannah said so."
+
+"Yes, I know," Bertram had laughed; "but still, Spunkie isn't Spunk, you
+understand!" he had finished, with a vision in his eyes of Billy as she
+had looked that first night when she had triumphantly lifted from the
+green basket the little gray kitten with its enormous pink bow. This
+time there was no circuitous journeying, no secrecy in the trip to New
+York. Quite as a matter of course the three brother made their plans to
+meet Billy, and quite as a matter of course they met her. Perhaps
+the only cloud in the horizon of their happiness was the presence
+of Calderwell. He, too, had come to meet Billy--and all the Henshaw
+brothers were vaguely conscious of a growing feeling of dislike toward
+Calderwell.
+
+Billy was unmistakably glad to see them--and to see Calderwell. It was
+while she was talking to Calderwell, indeed, that William and Cyril and
+Bertram had an opportunity really to see the girl, and to note what time
+had done for her. They knew then, at once, that time had been very kind.
+
+It was a slim Billy that they saw, with a head royally poised, and a
+chin that was round and soft, and yet knew well its own mind. The eyes
+were still appealing, in a way, yet behind the appeal lay unsounded
+depths of--not one of the brothers could quite make up his mind just
+what, yet all the brothers determined to find out. The hair still curled
+distractingly behind the pretty ears, and fluffed into burnished bronze
+where the wind had loosened it. The cheeks were paler now, though the
+rose-flush still glowed warmly through the clear, smooth skin. The
+mouth--Billy's mouth had always been fascinating, Bertram suddenly
+decided, as he watched it now. He wanted to paint it--again. It was not
+too large for beauty nor too small for strength. It curved delightfully,
+and the lower lip had just the fullness and the color that he liked--to
+paint, he said to himself.
+
+William, too, was watching Billy's mouth; in fact--though he did not
+know it--one never was long near Billy without noticing her mouth, if
+she talked. William thought it pretty, merry, and charmingly kissable;
+but just now he wished that it would talk to him, and not to Calderwell
+any longer. Cyril--indeed, Cyril was paying little attention to Billy.
+He had turned to Aunt Hannah. To tell the truth, it seemed to Cyril
+that, after all, Billy was very much like other merry, thoughtless,
+rather noisy young women, of whom he knew--and disliked--scores. It had
+occurred to him suddenly that perhaps it would not be unalloyed bliss to
+take this young namesake of William's home with them.
+
+It was not until an hour later, when Billy, Aunt Hannah, and the
+Henshaws had reached the hotel where they were to spend the night, that
+the Henshaw brothers began really to get acquainted with Billy. She
+seemed then more like their own Billy--the Billy that they had known.
+
+"And I'm so glad to be here," she cried; "and to see you all. America IS
+the best place, after all!"
+
+"And of America, Boston is the Hub, you know," Bertram reminded her.
+
+"It is," nodded Billy.
+
+"And it hasn't changed a mite, except to grow better. You'll see
+to-morrow."
+
+"As if I hadn't been counting the days!" she exulted. "And now what have
+you been doing--all of you?"
+
+"Just wait till you see," laughed Bertram. "They're all spread out for
+your inspection."
+
+"A new 'Face of a Girl'?"
+
+"Of course--yards of them!"
+
+"And heaps of 'Old Blues' and 'black basalts'?" she questioned, turning
+to William.
+
+"Well, a--few," hesitated William, modestly.
+
+"And--the music; what of that?" Billy looked now at Cyril.
+
+"You'll see," he shrugged. "There's very little, after all--of
+anything."
+
+Billy gave a wise shake of her head.
+
+"I know better; and I want to see it all so much. We've talked and
+talked of it; haven't we, Aunt Hannah?--of what we would do when we got
+to Boston?"
+
+"Yes, my dear; YOU have."
+
+The girl laughed.
+
+"I accept the amendment," she retorted with mock submission. "I suppose
+it is always I who talk."
+
+"It was--when I painted you," teased Bertram. "By the way, I'll LET you
+talk if you'll pose again for me," he finished eagerly.
+
+Billy uptilted her nose.
+
+"Do you think, sir, you deserve it, after that speech?" she demanded.
+
+"But how about YOUR art--your music?" entreated William. "You have said
+so little of that in your letters."
+
+Billy hesitated. For a brief moment she glanced at Cyril. He did not
+appear to have heard his brother's question. He was talking with Aunt
+Hannah.
+
+"Oh, I play--some," murmured the girl, almost evasively. "But tell me of
+yourself, Uncle William, and of what you are doing." And William needed
+no second bidding.
+
+It was some time later that Billy turned to him with an amazed
+exclamation in response to something he had said.
+
+"Home with you! Why, Uncle William, what do you mean? You didn't really
+think you'd got to be troubled with ME any longer!" she cried merrily.
+
+William's face paled, then flushed.
+
+"I did not call it 'trouble,' Billy," he said quietly. His grieved eyes
+looked straight into hers and drove the merriment quite away.
+
+"Oh, I'm so sorry," she said gently. "And I appreciate your kindness,
+indeed I do; but I couldn't--really I couldn't think of such a thing!"
+
+"And you don't have to think of it," cut in Bertram, who considered that
+the situation was becoming much too serious. "All you have to do is to
+come."
+
+Billy shook her head.
+
+"You are so good, all of you! But you didn't--you really didn't think I
+WAS--coming!" she protested.
+
+"Indeed we did," asserted Bertram, promptly; "and we have done
+everything to get ready for you, too, even to rigging up Spunkie to
+masquerade as Spunk. I'll warrant that Pete's nose is already flattened
+against the window-pane, lest we should HAPPEN to come to-night; and
+there's no telling how many cakes of chocolate Dong Ling has spoiled by
+this time. We left him trying to make fudge, you know."
+
+Billy laughed--but she cried, too; at least, her eyes grew suddenly
+moist. Bertram tried to decide afterward whether she laughed till she
+cried, or cried till she laughed.
+
+"No, no," she demurred tremulously. "I couldn't. I really have never
+intended that."
+
+"But why not? What are you going to do?" questioned William in a voice
+that was dazed and hurt.
+
+The first question Billy ignored. The second she answered with a
+promptness and a gayety that was meant to turn the thoughts away from
+the first.
+
+"We are going to Boston, Aunt Hannah and I. We've got rooms engaged
+for just now, but later we're going to take a house and live together.
+That's what we're going to do."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+HUGH CALDERWELL
+
+
+In the Beacon Street house William mournfully removed the huge pink bow
+from Spunkie's neck, and Bertram threw away the roses. Cyril marched
+up-stairs with his pile of new music and his book; and Pete, in
+obedience to orders, hid the workbasket, the tea table, and the low
+sewing-chair. With a great display of a "getting back home" air, Bertram
+moved many of his belongings upstairs--but inside of a week he had moved
+them down again, saying that, after all, he believed he liked the first
+floor better. Billy's rooms were closed then, and remained as they had
+for years--silent and deserted.
+
+Billy with Aunt Hannah had gone directly to their Back Bay hotel. "This
+is for just while I'm house-hunting," the girl had said. But very soon
+she had decided to go to Hampden Falls for the summer and postpone her
+house-buying until the autumn. Billy was twenty-one now, and there were
+many matters of business to arrange with Lawyer Harding, concerning her
+inheritance. It was not until September, therefore, when Billy once more
+returned to Boston, that the Henshaw brothers had the opportunity of
+renewing their acquaintance with William's namesake.
+
+"I want a home," Billy said to Bertram and William on the night of
+her arrival. (As before, Mrs. Stetson and Billy had gone directly to a
+hotel.) "I want a real home with a furnace to shake--if I want to--and
+some dirt to dig in."
+
+"Well, I'm sure that ought to be easy to find," smiled Bertram.
+
+"Oh, but that isn't all," supplemented Billy. "It must be mostly closets
+and piazza. At least, those are the important things."
+
+"Well, you might run across a snag there. Why don't you build?"
+
+Billy gave a gesture of dissent.
+
+"Too slow. I want it now."
+
+Bertram laughed. His eyes narrowed quizzically.
+
+"From what Calderwell says," he bantered, "I should judge that there are
+plenty of sighing swains who are only too ready to give you a home--and
+now."
+
+The pink deepened in Billy's cheeks.
+
+"I said closets and a piazza, dirt to dig, and a furnace to shake," she
+retorted merrily. "I didn't say I wanted a husband."
+
+"And you don't, of course," interposed William, decidedly. "You are much
+too young for that."
+
+"Yes, sir," agreed Billy demurely; but Bertram was sure he saw a twinkle
+under the downcast lashes.
+
+"And where is Cyril?" asked Mrs. Stetson, coming into the room at that
+moment.
+
+William stirred restlessly.
+
+"Well, Cyril couldn't--couldn't come," stammered William with an uneasy
+glance at his brother.
+
+Billy laughed unexpectedly.
+
+"It's too bad--about Mr. Cyril's not coming," she murmured. And again
+Bertram caught the twinkle in the downcast eyes.
+
+To Bertram the twinkle looked interesting, and worth pursuit; but at
+the very beginning of the chase Calderwell's card came up, and that
+ended--everything, so Bertram declared crossly to himself.
+
+Billy found her dirt to dig in, and her furnace to shake, in Brookline.
+There were closets, too, and a generous expanse of veranda. They all
+belonged to a quaint little house perched on the side of Corey Hill.
+From the veranda in the rear, and from many of the windows, one looked
+out upon a delightful view of many-hued, many-shaped roofs nestling
+among towering trees, with the wide sweep of the sky above, and the haze
+of faraway hills at the horizon.
+
+"In fact, it's as nearly perfect as it can be--and not take angel-wings
+and fly away," declared Billy. "I have named it 'Hillside.'"
+
+Very early in her career as house-owner, Billy decided that however
+delightful it might be to have a furnace to shake, it would not be at
+all delightful to shake it; besides, there was the new motor car to run.
+Billy therefore sought and found a good, strong man who had not only the
+muscle and the willingness to shake the furnace, but the skill to turn
+chauffeur at a moment's notice. Best of all, this man had also a wife
+who, with a maid to assist her, would take full charge of the house, and
+thus leave Billy and Mrs. Stetson free from care. All these, together
+with a canary, and a kitten as near like Spunk as could be obtained,
+made Billy's household.
+
+"And now I'm ready to see my friends," she announced.
+
+"And I think your friends will be ready to see you," Bertram assured
+her.
+
+And they were--at least, so it appeared. For at once the little house
+perched on the hillside became the Mecca for many of the Henshaws'
+friends who had known Billy as William's merry, eighteen-year-old
+namesake. There were others, too, whom Billy had met abroad; and
+there were soft-stepping, sweet-faced old women and an occasional
+white-whiskered old man--Aunt Hannah's friends--who found that the young
+mistress of Hillside was a charming hostess. There were also the Henshaw
+"boys," and there was always Calderwell--at least, so Bertram declared
+to himself sometimes.
+
+Bertram came frequently to the little house on the hill, even more
+frequently than William; but Cyril was not seen there so often. He came
+once at first, it is true, and followed Billy from room to room as she
+proudly displayed her new home. He showed polite interest in her view,
+and a perfunctory enjoyment of the tea she prepared for him. But he
+did not come again for some time, and when he did come, he sat stiffly
+silent, while his brothers did most of the talking.
+
+As to Calderwell--Calderwell seemed suddenly to have lost his interest
+in impenetrable forests and unclimbable mountains. Nothing more
+intricate than the long Beacon Street boulevard, or more inaccessible
+than Corey Hill seemed worth exploring, apparently. According to
+Calderwell's own version of it, he had "settled down"; he was going
+to "be something that was something." And he did spend sundry of his
+morning hours in a Boston law office with ponderous, calf-bound volumes
+spread in imposing array on the desk before him. Other hours--many
+hours--he spent with Billy.
+
+One day, very soon, in fact, after she arrived in Boston, Billy asked
+Calderwell about the Henshaws.
+
+"Tell me about them," she said. "Tell me what they have been doing all
+these years."
+
+"Tell you about them! Why, don't you know?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"No. Cyril says nothing. William little more--about themselves; and you
+know what Bertram is. One can hardly separate sense from nonsense with
+him."
+
+"You don't know, then, how splendidly Bertram has done with his art?"
+
+"No; only from the most casual hearsay. Has he done well then?"
+
+"Finely! The public has been his for years, and now the critics
+are tumbling over each other to do him honor. They rave about his
+'sensitive, brilliant, nervous touch,'--whatever that may be; his
+'marvelous color sense'; his 'beauty of line and pose.' And they quarrel
+over whether it's realism or idealism that constitutes his charm."
+
+"I'm so glad! And is it still the 'Face of a Girl'?"
+
+"Yes; only he's doing straight portraiture now as well. It's got to be
+quite the thing to be 'done' by Henshaw; and there's many a fair lady
+that has graciously commissioned him to paint her portrait. He's a fine
+fellow, too--a mighty fine fellow. You may not know, perhaps, but three
+or four years ago he was--well, not wild, but 'frolicsome,' he would
+probably have called it. He got in with a lot of fellows that--well,
+that weren't good for a chap of Bertram's temperament."
+
+"Like--Mr. Seaver?"
+
+Calderwell turned sharply.
+
+"Did YOU know Seaver?" he demanded in obvious surprise.
+
+"I used to SEE him--with Bertram."
+
+"Oh! Well, he WAS one of them, unfortunately. But Bertram shipped him
+years ago."
+
+Billy gave a sudden radiant smile--but she changed the subject at once.
+
+"And Mr. William still collects, I suppose," she observed.
+
+"Jove! I should say he did! I've forgotten the latest; but he's a fine
+fellow, too, like Bertram."
+
+"And--Mr. Cyril?"
+
+Calderwell frowned.
+
+"That chap's a poser for me, Billy, and no mistake. I can't make him
+out!"
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"I don't know. Probably I'm not 'tuned to his pitch.' Bertram told me
+once that Cyril was very sensitively strung, and never responded until
+a certain note was struck. Well, I haven't ever found that note, I
+reckon."
+
+Billy laughed.
+
+"I never heard Bertram say that, but I think I know what he means; and
+he's right, too. I begin to realize now what a jangling discord I must
+have created when I tried to harmonize with him three years ago! But
+what is he doing in his music?"
+
+The other shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Same thing. Plays occasionally, and plays well, too; but he's so
+erratic it's difficult to get him to do it. Everything must be just so,
+you know--air, light, piano, and audience. He's got another book out,
+I'm told--a profound treatise on somebody's something or other--musical,
+of course."
+
+"And he used to write music; doesn't he do that any more?"
+
+"I believe so. I hear of it occasionally through musical friends of
+mine. They even play it to me sometimes. But I can't stand for much of
+it--his stuff--really, Billy."
+
+"'Stuff' indeed! And why not?" An odd hostility showed in Billy's eyes.
+
+Again Calderwell shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Don't ask me. I don't know. But they're always dead slow, somber
+things, with the wail of a lost spirit shrieking through them."
+
+"But I just love lost spirits that wail," avowed Billy, with more than a
+shade of reproach in her voice.
+
+Calderwell stared; then he shook his head.
+
+"Not in mine, thank you;" he retorted whimsically. "I prefer my spirits
+of a more sane and cheerful sort."
+
+The girl laughed, but almost instantly she fell silent.
+
+"I've been wondering," she began musingly, after a time, "why some one
+of those three men does not--marry."
+
+"You wouldn't wonder--if you knew them better," declared Calderwell.
+"Now think. Let's begin at the top of the Strata--by the way, Bertram's
+name for that establishment is mighty clever! First, Cyril: according
+to Bertram Cyril hates 'all kinds of women and other confusion'; and I
+fancy Bertram hits it about right. So that settles Cyril. Then there's
+William--you know William. Any girl would say William was a dear; but
+William isn't a MARRYING man. Dad says,"--Calderwell's voice softened a
+little--"dad says that William and his young wife were the most devoted
+couple that he ever saw; and that when she died she seemed to take with
+her the whole of William's heart--that is, what hadn't gone with the
+baby a few years before. There was a boy, you know, that died."
+
+"Yes, I know," nodded Billy, quick tears in her eyes. "Aunt Hannah told
+me."
+
+"Well, that counts out William, then," said Calderwell, with an air of
+finality.
+
+"But how about Bertram? You haven't settled Bertram," laughed Billy,
+archly.
+
+"Bertram!" Calderwell's eyes widened. "Billy, can you imagine Bertram's
+making love in real earnest to a girl?"
+
+"Why, I--don't--know; maybe!" Billy tipped her head from side to side as
+if she were viewing a picture set up for her inspection.
+
+"Well, I can't. In the first place, no girl would think he was serious;
+or if by any chance she did, she'd soon discover that it was the turn
+of her head or the tilt of her chin that he admired--TO PAINT. Now isn't
+that so?"
+
+Billy laughed, but she did not answer.
+
+"It is, and you know it," declared Calderwell. "And that settles him.
+Now you can see, perhaps, why none of these men--will marry."
+
+It was a long minute before Billy spoke.
+
+"Not a bit of it. I don't see it at all," she declared with roguish
+merriment. "Moreover, I think that some day, some one of them--will
+marry, Sir Doubtful!"
+
+Calderwell threw a quick glance into her eyes. Evidently something he
+saw there sent a swift shadow to his own. He waited a moment, then asked
+abruptly:
+
+"Billy, WON'T you marry me?"
+
+Billy frowned, though her eyes still laughed.
+
+"Hugh, I told you not to ask me that again," she demurred.
+
+"And I told you not to ask impossibilities of me," he retorted
+imperturbably. "Billy, won't you, now--seriously?"
+
+"Seriously, no, Hugh. Please don't let us go all over that again when
+we've done it so many times."
+
+"No, let's don't," agreed the man, cheerfully. "And we don't have to,
+either, if you'll only say 'yes,' now right away, without any more
+fuss."
+
+Billy sighed impatiently.
+
+"Hugh, won't you understand that I'm serious?" she cried; then she
+turned suddenly, with a peculiar flash in her eyes.
+
+"Hugh, I don't believe Bertram himself could make love any more
+nonsensically than you can!"
+
+Calderwell laughed, but he frowned, too; and again he threw into
+Billy's face that keenly questioning glance. He said something--a light
+something--that brought the laugh to Billy's lips in spite of herself;
+but he was still frowning when he left the house some minutes later, and
+the shadow was not gone from his eyes.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+BERTRAM DOES SOME QUESTIONING
+
+
+Billy's time was well occupied. There were so many, many things she
+wished to do, and so few, few hours in which to do them. First there was
+her music. She made arrangements at once to study with one of Boston's
+best piano teachers, and she also made plans to continue her French and
+German. She joined a musical club, a literary club, and a more strictly
+social club; and to numerous church charities and philanthropic
+enterprises she lent more than her name, giving freely of both time and
+money.
+
+Friday afternoons, of course, were to be held sacred to the Symphony
+concerts; and on certain Wednesday mornings there was to be a series of
+recitals, in which she was greatly interested.
+
+For Society with a capital S, Billy cared little; but for sociability
+with a small s, she cared much; and very wide she opened her doors to
+her friends, lavishing upon them a wealth of hospitality. Nor did
+they all come in carriages or automobiles--these friends. A certain
+pale-faced little widow over at the South End knew just how good Miss
+Neilson's tea tasted on a crisp October afternoon and Marie Hawthorn, a
+frail young woman who gave music lessons, knew just how restful was Miss
+Neilson's couch after a weary day of long walks and fretful pupils.
+
+"But how in the world do you discover them all--these forlorn specimens
+of humanity?" queried Bertram one evening, when he had found Billy
+entertaining a freckled-faced messenger-boy with a plate of ice cream
+and a big square of cake.
+
+"Anywhere--everywhere," smiled Billy.
+
+"Well, this last candidate for your favor, who has just gone--who's he?"
+
+"I don't know, beyond that his name is 'Tom,' and that he likes ice
+cream."
+
+"And you never saw him before?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Humph! One wouldn't think it, to see his charming air of nonchalant
+accustomedness."
+
+"Oh, but it doesn't take much to make a little fellow like that feel at
+home," laughed Billy.
+
+"And are you in the habit of feeding every one who comes to your house,
+on ice cream and chocolate cake? I thought that stone doorstep of yours
+was looking a little worn."
+
+"Not a bit of it," retorted Billy. "This little chap came with a message
+just as I was finishing dinner. The ice cream was particularly good
+to-night, and it occurred to me that he might like a taste; so I gave it
+to him."
+
+Bertram raised his eyebrows quizzically.
+
+"Very kind, of course; but--why ice cream?" he questioned. "I thought it
+was roast beef and boiled potatoes that was supposed to be handed out to
+gaunt-eyed hunger."
+
+"It is," nodded Billy, "and that's why I think sometimes they'd like ice
+cream and chocolate frosting. Besides, to give sugar plums one doesn't
+have to unwind yards of red tape, or worry about 'pauperizing the poor.'
+To give red flannels and a ton of coal, one must be properly circumspect
+and consult records and city missionaries, of course; and that's why
+it's such a relief sometimes just to hand over a simple little sugar
+plum and see them smile."
+
+For a minute Bertram was silent, then he asked abruptly:
+
+"Billy, why did you leave the Strata?"
+
+Billy was taken quite by surprise. A pink flush spread to her forehead,
+and her tongue stumbled at first over her reply.
+
+"Why, I--it seemed--you--why, I left to go to Hampden Falls, to be sure.
+Don't you remember?" she finished gaily.
+
+"Oh, yes, I remember THAT," conceded Bertram with disdainful emphasis.
+"But why did you go to Hampden Falls?"
+
+"Why, it--it was the only place to go--that is, I WANTED to go there,"
+she corrected hastily. "Didn't Aunt Hannah tell you that I--I was
+homesick to get back there?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Aunt Hannah SAID that," observed the man; "but wasn't that
+homesickness a little--sudden?"
+
+Billy blushed pink again.
+
+"Why, maybe; but--well, homesickness is always more or less sudden;
+isn't it?" she parried.
+
+Bertram laughed, but his eyes grew suddenly almost tender.
+
+"See here, Billy, you can't bluff worth a cent," he declared. "You are
+much too refreshingly frank for that. Something was the trouble. Now
+what was it? Won't you tell me, please?"
+
+Billy pouted. She hesitated and gazed anywhere but into the challenging
+eyes before her. Then very suddenly she looked straight into them.
+
+"Very well, there WAS a reason for my leaving," she confessed a little
+breathlessly. "I--didn't want to--bother you any more--all of you."
+
+"Bother us!"
+
+"No. I found out. You couldn't paint; Mr. Cyril couldn't play or write;
+and--and everything was different because I was there. But I didn't
+blame you--no, no!" she assured him hastily. "It was only that I--found
+out."
+
+"And may I ask HOW you obtained this most extraordinary information?"
+demanded Bertram, savagely.
+
+Billy shook her head. Her round little chin looked suddenly square and
+determined.
+
+"You may ask, but I shall not tell," she declared firmly.
+
+If Bertram had known Billy just a little better he would have let the
+matter drop there; but he did not know Billy, so he asked:
+
+"Was it anything I did--or said?"
+
+The girl did not answer.
+
+"Billy, was it?" Bertram's voice showed terror now.
+
+Billy laughed unexpectedly.
+
+"Do you think I'm going to say 'no' to a series of questions, and then
+give the whole thing away by my silence when you come to the right one?"
+she demanded merrily. "No, sir!"
+
+"Well, anyhow, it wasn't I, then," sighed the man in relief; "for
+you just observed that you were not going to say 'no to a series of
+questions'--and that was the first one. So I've found out that much,
+anyhow," he concluded triumphantly.
+
+The girl eyed him for a moment in silence; then she shook her head.
+
+"I'm not going to be caught that way, either," she smiled. "You
+know--just what you did in the first place about it: nothing."
+
+The man stirred restlessly and pondered. After a long pause he adopted
+new tactics. With a searching study of her face to note the slightest
+change, he enumerated:
+
+"Was it Cyril, then? Will? Aunt Hannah? Kate? It couldn't have been
+Pete, or Dong Ling!"
+
+Billy still smiled inscrutably. At no name had Bertram detected so
+much as the flicker of an eyelid; and with a glance half-admiring,
+half-chagrined, he fell back into his chair.
+
+"I'll give it up. You've won," he acknowledged. "But, Billy,"--his
+manner changed suddenly--"I wonder if you know just what a hole you left
+in the Strata when you went away."
+
+"But I couldn't have--in the whole Strata," objected Billy. "I occupied
+only one stratum, and a stratum doesn't go up and down, you know, only
+across; and mine was the second floor."
+
+Bertram gave a slow shake of his head.
+
+"I know; but yours was a freak formation," he maintained gravely. "It
+DID go up and down. Honestly, Billy, we did care--lots. Will and I were
+inconsolable, and even Cyril played dirges for a week."
+
+"Did he?" gurgled Billy, with sudden joyousness. "I'm so glad!"
+
+"Thank you," murmured Bertram, disapprovingly. "We hadn't considered it
+a subject for exultation."
+
+"What? Oh, I didn't mean that! That is--" she stopped helplessly.
+
+"Oh, never mind about trying to explain," interposed Bertram. "I fancy
+the remedy would be worse than the disease, in this case."
+
+"Nonsense! I only meant that I like to be missed--sometimes," retorted
+Billy, a little nettled.
+
+"And you rejoice then to have me mope, Cyril play dirges, and Will
+wander mournfully about the house with Spunkie in his arms! You should
+have seen William. If his forlornness did not bring tears to your eyes,
+the grace of the pink bow that lopped behind Spunkie's left ear would
+surely have brought a copious flow."
+
+Billy laughed, but her eyes grew tender.
+
+"Did Uncle William do--that?" she asked.
+
+"He did--and he did more. Pete told me after a time that you had
+not left one thing in the house, anywhere; but one day, over behind
+William's most treasured Lowestoft, I found a small shell hairpin, and
+a flat brown silk button that I recognized as coming from one of your
+dresses."
+
+"Oh!" said Billy, softly. "Dear Uncle William--and how good he was to
+me!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+CYRIL, THE ENIGMA
+
+
+Perhaps it was because Billy saw so little of Cyril that it was Cyril
+whom she wished particularly to see. William, Bertram, Calderwell--all
+her other friends came frequently to the little house on the hill, Billy
+told herself; only Cyril held aloof--and it was Cyril that she wanted.
+
+Billy said that it was his music; that she wanted to hear him play, and
+that she wanted him to hear her. She felt grieved and chagrined. Not
+once since she had come had he seemed interested--really interested in
+her music. He had asked her, it is true, in a perfunctory way what
+she had done, and who her teachers had been. But all the while she was
+answering she had felt that he was not listening; that he did not care.
+And she cared so much! She knew now that all her practising through
+the long hard months of study, had been for Cyril. Every scale had been
+smoothed for his ears, and every phrase had been interpreted with his
+approbation in view. Across the wide waste of waters his face had shone
+like a star of promise, beckoning her on and on to heights unknown...
+And now she was here in Boston, but she could not even play the
+scale, nor interpret the phrase for the ear to which they had been so
+laboriously attuned; and Cyril's face, in the flesh, was no beckoning
+star of promise, but was a thing as cold and relentless as was the waste
+of waters across which it had shone in the past.
+
+Billy did not understand it. She knew, it is true, of Cyril's reputed
+aversion to women in general and to noise; but she was neither women in
+general nor noise, she told herself indignantly. She was only the little
+maid, grown three years older, who had sat at his feet and adoringly
+listened to all that he had been pleased to say in the old days at the
+top of the Strata. And he had been kind then--very kind, Billy declared
+stoutly. He had been patient and interested, too, and he had seemed not
+only willing, but glad to teach her, while now--
+
+Sometimes Billy thought she would ask him candidly what was the matter.
+But it was always the old, frank Billy that thought this; the impulsive
+Billy, that had gone up to Cyril's rooms years before and cheerfully
+announced that she had come to get acquainted. It was never the
+sensible, circumspect Billy that Aunt Hannah had for three years
+been shaping and coaxing into being. But even this Billy frowned
+rebelliously, and declared that sometime something should be said that
+would at least give him a chance to explain.
+
+In all the weeks since Billy's purchase of Hillside, Cyril had been
+there only twice, and it was nearly Thanksgiving now. Billy had seen
+him once or twice, also, at the Beacon Street house, when she and Aunt
+Hannah had dined there; but on all these occasions he had been either
+the coldly reserved guest or the painfully punctilious host. Never had
+he been in the least approachable.
+
+"He treats me exactly as he treated poor little Spunk that first night,"
+Billy declared hotly to herself.
+
+Only once since she came had Billy heard Cyril play, and that was
+when she had shared the privilege with hundreds of others at a public
+concert. She had sat then entranced, with her eyes on the clean-cut
+handsome profile of the man who played with so sure a skill and power,
+yet without a note before him. Afterward she had met him face to face,
+and had tried to tell him how moved she was; but in her agitation, and
+because of a strange shyness that had suddenly come to her, she had
+ended only in stammering out some flippant banality that had brought to
+his face merely a bored smile of acknowledgment.
+
+Twice she had asked him to play for her; but each time he had begged to
+be excused, courteously, but decidedly.
+
+"It's no use to tease," Bertram had interposed once, with an airy wave
+of his hands. "This lion always did refuse to roar to order. If you
+really must hear him, you'll have to slip up-stairs and camp outside his
+door, waiting patiently for such crumbs as may fall from his table."
+
+"Aren't your metaphors a little mixed?" questioned Cyril irritably.
+
+"Yes, sir," acknowledged Bertram with unruffled temper, "but I don't
+mind if Billy doesn't. I only meant her to understand that she'd have to
+do as she used to do--listen outside your door."
+
+Billy's cheeks reddened.
+
+"But that is what I sha'n't do," she retorted with spirit. "And,
+moreover, I still have hopes that some day he'll play to me."
+
+"Maybe," conceded Bertram, doubtfully; "if the stool and the piano and
+the pedals and the weather and his fingers and your ears and my watch
+are all just right--then he'll play."
+
+"Nonsense!" scowled Cyril. "I'll play, of course, some day. But I'd
+rather not today." And there the matter had ended. Since then Billy had
+not asked him to play.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE OLD ROOM--AND BILLY
+
+
+Thanksgiving was to be a great day in the Henshaw family. The Henshaw
+brothers were to entertain. Billy and Aunt Hannah had been invited to
+dinner; and so joyously hospitable was William's invitation that it
+would have included the new kitten and the canary if Billy would have
+consented to bring them.
+
+Once more Pete swept and garnished the house, and once more Dong Ling
+spoiled uncounted squares of chocolate trying to make the baffling
+fudge. Bertram said that the entire Strata was a-quiver. Not but that
+Billy and Aunt Hannah had visited there before, but that this was
+different. They were to come at noon this time. This visit was not to be
+a tantalizing little piece of stiffness an hour and a half long. It was
+to be a satisfying, whole-souled matter of half a day's comradeship,
+almost like old times. So once more the roses graced the rooms, and
+a flaring pink bow adorned Spunkie's fat neck; and once more Bertram
+placed his latest "Face of a Girl" in the best possible light. There was
+still a difference, however, for this time Cyril did not bring any music
+down to the piano, nor display anywhere a copy of his newest book.
+
+The dinner was to be at three o'clock, but by special invitation the
+guests were to arrive at twelve; and promptly at the appointed hour they
+came.
+
+"There, this is something like," exulted Bertram, when the ladies,
+divested of their wraps, toasted their feet before the open fire in his
+den.
+
+"Indeed it is, for now I've time to see everything--everything you've
+done since I've been gone," cried Billy, gazing eagerly about her.
+
+"Hm-m; well, THAT wasn't what I meant," shrugged Bertram.
+
+"Of course not; but it's what I meant," retorted Billy. "And there are
+other things, too. I expect there are half a dozen new 'Old Blues' and
+black basalts that I want to see; eh, Uncle William?" she finished,
+smiling into the eyes of the man who had been gazing at her with doting
+pride for the last five minutes.
+
+"Ho! Will isn't on teapots now," quoth Bertram, before his brother had
+a chance to reply. "You might dangle the oldest 'Old Blue' that ever was
+before him now, and he'd pay scant attention if he happened at the same
+time to get his eyes on some old pewter chain with a green stone in it."
+
+Billy laughed; but at the look of genuine distress that came into
+William's face, she sobered at once.
+
+"Don't you let him tease you, Uncle William," she said quickly.
+"I'm sure pewter chains with green stones in them sound just awfully
+interesting, and I want to see them right away now. Come," she finished,
+springing to her feet, "take me up-stairs, please, and show them to me."
+
+William shook his head and said, "No, no!" protesting that what he had
+were scarcely worth her attention; but even while he talked he rose to
+his feet and advanced half eagerly, half reluctantly, toward the door.
+
+"Nonsense," said Billy, fondly, as she laid her hand on his arm. "I know
+they are very much worth seeing. Come!" And she led the way from the
+room. "Oh, oh!" she exclaimed a few moments later, as she stood before a
+small cabinet in one of William's rooms. "Oh, oh, how pretty!"
+
+"Do you like them? I thought you would," triumphed William, quick joy
+driving away the anxious fear in his eyes. "You see, I--I thought of
+you when I got them--every one of them. I thought you'd like them. But
+I haven't very many, yet, of course. This is the latest one." And he
+tenderly lifted from its black velvet mat a curious silver necklace made
+of small, flat, chain-linked disks, heavily chased, and set at regular
+intervals with a strange, blue-green stone.
+
+Billy hung above it enraptured.
+
+"Oh, what a beauty! And this, I suppose, is Bertram's 'pewter chain'!
+'Pewter,' indeed!" she scoffed. "Tell me, Uncle William, where did you
+get it?"
+
+And uncle William told, happily, thirstily, drinking in Billy's evident
+interest with delight. There were, too, a quaintly-set ring and a
+cat's-eye brooch; and to each belonged a story which William was
+equally glad to tell. There were other treasures, also: buckles, rings,
+brooches, and necklaces, some of dull gold, some of equally dull silver;
+but all of odd design and curious workmanship, studded here and there
+with bits of red, green, yellow, blue, and flame-colored stones. Very
+learnedly then from William's lips fell the new vocabulary that had come
+to him with his latest treasures: chrysoprase, carnelian, girasol, onyx,
+plasma, sardonyx, lapis lazuli, tourmaline, chrysolite, hyacinth, and
+carbuncle.
+
+"They are lovely, perfectly lovely!" breathed Billy, when the last chain
+had slipped through her fingers into William's hand. "I think they are
+the very nicest things you ever collected."
+
+"So do I," agreed the man, emphatically. "And they are--different, too."
+
+"They are," said Billy, "very--different." But she was not looking at
+the jewelry: her eyes were on a small shell hairpin and a brown silk
+button half hidden behind a Lowestoft teapot.
+
+On the way down-stairs William stopped a moment at Billy's old rooms.
+
+"I wish you were here now," he said wistfully. "They're all ready for
+you--these rooms."
+
+"Oh, but why don't you use them?--such pretty rooms!" cried Billy,
+quickly.
+
+William gave a gesture of dissent.
+
+"We have no use for them; besides, they belong to you and Aunt Hannah.
+You left your imprint long ago, my dear--we should not feel at home in
+them."
+
+"Oh, but you should! You mustn't feel like that!" objected Billy,
+hurriedly crossing the room to the window to hide a sudden nervousness
+that had assailed her. "And here's my piano, too, and open!" she
+finished gaily, dropping herself upon the piano stool and dashing into a
+brilliant mazourka.
+
+Billy, like Cyril, had a way of working off her moods at her finger
+tips; and to-day the tripping notes and crashing chords told of a
+nervous excitement that was not all joy. From the doorway William
+watched her flying fingers with fond pride, and it was very reluctantly
+that he acceded to Pete's request to go down-stairs for a moment to
+settle a vexed question concerning the table decorations.
+
+Billy, left alone, still played, but with a difference. The tripping
+notes slowed into a weird melody that rose and fell and lost itself in
+the exquisite harmony that had been born of the crashing chords. Billy
+was improvising now, and into her music had crept something of her
+old-time longing when she had come to that house a lonely, orphan girl,
+in search of a home. On and on she played; then with a discordant
+note, she suddenly rose from the piano. She was thinking of Kate, and
+wondering if, had Kate not "managed" the little room would still be
+home.
+
+So swiftly did Billy cross to the door that the man on the stairs
+outside had not time to get quite out of sight. Billy did not see his
+face, however; she saw only a pair of gray-trousered legs disappearing
+around the curve of the landing above. She thought nothing of it until
+later when dinner was announced, and Cyril came down-stairs; then
+she saw that he, and he only, that afternoon wore trousers of that
+particular shade of gray.
+
+The dinner was a great success. Even the chocolate fudge in the little
+cut glass bonbon dishes was perfect; and it was a question whether Pete
+or Dong Ling tried the harder to please.
+
+After dinner the family gathered in the drawing-room and chatted
+pleasantly. Bertram displayed his prettiest and newest pictures, and
+Billy played and sung--bright, tuneful little things that she knew Aunt
+Hannah and Uncle William liked. If Cyril was pleased or displeased, he
+did not show it--but Billy had ceased to play for Cyril's ears. She told
+herself that she did not care; but she did wonder: was that Cyril on the
+stairs, and if so--what was he doing there?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+"MUSIC HATH CHARMS"
+
+
+Two days after Thanksgiving Cyril called at Hillside.
+
+"I've come to hear you play," he announced abruptly.
+
+Billy's heart sung within her--but her temper rose. Did he think then
+that he had but to beckon and she would come--and at this late day, she
+asked herself. Aloud she said:
+
+"Play? But this is 'so sudden'! Besides, you have heard me."
+
+The man made a disdainful gesture.
+
+"Not that. I mean play--really play. Billy, why haven't you played to me
+before?"
+
+Billy's chin rose perceptibly.
+
+"Why haven't you asked me?" she parried.
+
+To Billy's surprise the man answered this with calm directness.
+
+"Because Calderwell said that you were a dandy player, and I don't care
+for dandy players."
+
+Billy laughed now.
+
+"And how do you know I'm not a dandy player, Sir Impertinent?" she
+demanded.
+
+"Because I've heard you--when you weren't."
+
+"Thank you," murmured Billy.
+
+Cyril shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Oh, you know very well what I mean," he defended. "I've heard you;
+that's all."
+
+"When?"
+
+"That doesn't signify."
+
+Billy was silent for a moment, her eyes gravely studying his face. Then
+she asked:
+
+"Were you long--on that stairway?"
+
+"Eh? What? Oh!" Cyril's forehead grew suddenly pink. "Well?" he finished
+a little aggressively.
+
+"Oh, nothing," smiled the girl. "Of course people who live in glass
+houses must not throw stones."
+
+"Very well then, I did listen," acknowledged the man, testily. "I liked
+what you were playing. I hoped, down-stairs later, that you'd play it
+again; but you didn't. I came to-day to hear it."
+
+Again Billy's heart sung within her--but again her temper rose, too.
+
+"I don't think I feel like it," she said sweetly, with a shake of her
+head. "Not to-day."
+
+For a brief moment Cyril stared frowningly; then his face lighted with
+his rare smile.
+
+"I'm fairly checkmated," he said, rising to his feet and going straight
+to the piano.
+
+For long minutes he played, modulating from one enchanting composition
+to another, and finishing with the one "all chords with big bass notes"
+that marched on and on--the one Billy had sat long ago on the stairs to
+hear.
+
+"There! Now will you play for me?" he asked, rising to his feet, and
+turning reproachful eyes upon her.
+
+Billy, too, rose to her feet. Her face was flushed and her eyes were
+shining. Her lips quivered with emotion. As was always the case, Cyril's
+music had carried her quite out of herself.
+
+"Oh, thank you, thank you," she sighed. "You don't know--you can't know
+how beautiful it all is--to me!"
+
+"Thank you. Then surely now you'll play to me," he returned.
+
+A look of real distress came to Billy's face.
+
+"But I can't--not what you heard the other day," she cried remorsefully.
+"You see, I was--only improvising."
+
+Cyril turned quickly.
+
+"Only improvising! Billy, did you ever write it down--any of your
+improvising?"
+
+An embarrassed red flew to Billy's face.
+
+"Not--not that amounted to--well, that is, some--a little," she
+stammered.
+
+"Let me see it."
+
+"No, no, I couldn't--not YOU!"
+
+Again the rare smile lighted Cyril's eyes.
+
+"Billy, let me see that paper--please."
+
+Very slowly the girl turned toward the music cabinet. She hesitated,
+glanced once more appealingly into Cyril's face, then with nervous haste
+opened the little mahogany door and took from one of the shelves a sheet
+of manuscript music. But, like a shy child with her first copy book, she
+held it half behind her back as she came toward the piano.
+
+"Thank you," said Cyril as he reached far out for the music. The next
+moment he seated himself again at the piano.
+
+Twice he played the little song through carefully, slowly.
+
+"Now, sing it," he directed.
+
+Falteringly, in a very faint voice, and with very many breaths taken
+where they should not have been taken, Billy obeyed.
+
+"When we want to show off your song, Billy, we won't ask you to sing
+it," observed the man, dryly, when she had finished.
+
+Billy laughed and dimpled into a blush.
+
+"When I want to show off my song I sha'n't be singing it to you for the
+first time," she pouted.
+
+Cyril did not answer. He was playing over and over certain harmonies in
+the music before him.
+
+"Hm-m; I see you've studied your counterpoint to some purpose," he
+vouchsafed, finally; then: "Where did you get the words?"
+
+The girl hesitated. The flush had deepened on her face.
+
+"Well, I--" she stopped and gave an embarrassed laugh. "I'm like the
+small boy who made the toys. 'I got them all out of my own head, and
+there's wood enough to make another.'"
+
+"Hm-m; indeed!" grunted the man. "Well, have you made any others?"
+
+"One--or two, maybe."
+
+"Let me see them, please."
+
+"I think--we've had enough--for today," she faltered.
+
+"I haven't. Besides, if I could have a couple more to go with this, it
+would make a very pretty little group of songs."
+
+"'To go with this'! What do you mean?"
+
+"To the publishers, of course."
+
+"The PUBLISHERS!"
+
+"Certainly. Did you think you were going to keep these songs to
+yourself?"
+
+"But they aren't worth it! They can't be--good enough!" Unbelieving joy
+was in Billy's voice.
+
+"No? Well, we'll let others decide that," observed Cyril, with a shrug.
+"All is, if you've got any more wood--like this--I advise you to make it
+up right away."
+
+"But I have already!" cried the girl, excitedly. "There are lots of
+little things that I've--that is, there are--some," she corrected
+hastily, at the look that sprang into Cyril's eyes.
+
+"Oh, there are," laughed Cyril. "Well, we'll see what--" But he did
+not see. He did not even finish his sentence; for Billy's maid, Rosa,
+appeared just then with a card.
+
+"Show Mr. Calderwell in here," said Billy. Cyril said nothing--aloud;
+which was well. His thoughts, just then, were better left unspoken.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+MARIE, WHO LONGS TO MAKE PUDDINGS
+
+
+Wonderful days came then to Billy. Four songs, it seemed, had been
+pronounced by competent critics decidedly "worth it"--unmistakably "good
+enough"; and they were to be brought out as soon as possible.
+
+"Of course you understand," explained Cyril, "that there's no 'hit'
+expected. Thank heaven they aren't that sort! And there's no great money
+in it, either. You'd have to write a masterpiece like 'She's my Ju-Ju
+Baby' or some such gem to get the 'hit' and the money. But the songs are
+fine, and they'll take with cultured hearers. We'll get them introduced
+by good singers, of course, and they'll be favorites soon for the
+concert stage, and for parlors."
+
+Billy saw a good deal of Cyril now. Already she was at work rewriting
+and polishing some of her half-completed melodies, and Cyril was helping
+her, by his interest as well as by his criticism. He was, in fact,
+at the house very frequently--too frequently, indeed, to suit either
+Bertram or Calderwell. Even William frowned sometimes when his cozy
+chats with Billy were interrupted by Cyril's appearing with a roll of
+new music for her to "try"; though William told himself that he ought
+to be thankful if there was anything that could make Cyril more
+companionable, less reserved and morose. And Cyril WAS different--there
+was no disputing that. Calderwell said that he had come "out of his
+shell"; and Bertram told Billy that she must have "found his note and
+struck it good and hard."
+
+Billy was very happy. To the little music teacher, Marie Hawthorn, she
+talked more freely, perhaps, than she did to any one else.
+
+"It's so wonderful, Marie--so wonderfully wonderful," she said one
+day, "to sit here in my own room and sing a little song that comes from
+somewhere, anywhere, out of the sky itself. Then by and by, that little
+song will fly away, away, over land and sea; and some day it will touch
+somebody's heart just as it has touched mine. Oh, Marie, is it not
+wonderful?"
+
+"It is, dear--and it is not. Your songs could not help reaching
+somebody's heart. There's nothing wonderful in that."
+
+"Sweet flatterer!"
+
+"But I mean it. They are beautiful; and so is--Mr. Henshaw's music."
+
+"Yes, it is," murmured Billy, abstractedly.
+
+There was a long pause, then Marie asked with shy hesitation:
+
+"Do you think, Miss Billy--that he would care? I listened yesterday when
+he was playing to you. I was up here in your room, but when I heard the
+music I--I went out, on the stairs and sat down. Was it very--bad of
+me?"
+
+Billy laughed happily.
+
+"If it was, he can't say anything," she reassured her. "He's done the
+same thing himself--and so have I."
+
+"HE has done it!"
+
+"Yes. It was at his home last Thanksgiving. It was then that he found
+out--about my improvising."
+
+"Oh-h!" Marie's eyes were wistful. "And he cares so much now for your
+music!"
+
+"Does he? Do you think he does?" demanded Billy.
+
+"I know he does--and for the one who makes it, too."
+
+"Nonsense!" laughed Billy, with pinker cheeks. "It's the music, not the
+musician, that pleases him. Mr. Cyril doesn't like women."
+
+"He doesn't like women!"
+
+"No. But don't look so shocked, my dear. Every one who knows Mr. Cyril
+knows that."
+
+"But I don't think--I believe it," demurred Marie, gazing straight into
+Billy's eyes. "I'm sure I don't believe it."
+
+Under the little music teacher's steady gaze Billy flushed again. The
+laugh she gave was an embarrassed one, but through it vibrated a pleased
+ring.
+
+"Nonsense!" she exclaimed, springing to her feet and moving restlessly
+about the room. With the next breath she had changed the subject to one
+far removed from Mr. Cyril and his likes and dislikes.
+
+Some time later Billy played, and it was then that Marie drew a long
+sigh.
+
+"How beautiful it must be to play--like that," she breathed.
+
+"As if you, a music teacher, could not play!" laughed Billy.
+
+"Not like that, dear. You know it is not like that."
+
+Billy frowned.
+
+"But you are so accurate, Marie, and you can read at sight so rapidly!"
+
+"Oh, yes, like a little machine, I know!" scorned the usually gentle
+Marie, bitterly. "Don't they have a thing of metal that adds figures
+like magic? Well, I'm like that. I see g and I play g; I see d and I
+play d; I see f and I play f; and after I've seen enough g's and d's and
+f's and played them all, the thing is done. I've played."
+
+"Why, Marie! Marie, my dear!" The second exclamation was very tender,
+for Marie was crying.
+
+"There! I knew I should some day have it out--all out," sobbed Marie. "I
+felt it coming."
+
+"Then perhaps you'll--you'll feel better now," stammered Billy. She
+tried to say more--other words that would have been a real comfort; but
+her tongue refused to speak them. She knew so well, so woefully well,
+how very wooden and mechanical the little music teacher's playing
+always had been. But that Marie should realize it herself like this--the
+tragedy of it made Billy's heart ache. At Marie's next words, however,
+Billy caught her breath in surprise.
+
+"But you see it wasn't music--it wasn't ever music that I wanted--to
+do," she confessed.
+
+"It wasn't music! But what--I don't understand," murmured Billy.
+
+"No, I suppose not," sighed the other. "You play so beautifully
+yourself."
+
+"But I thought you loved music."
+
+"I do. I love it dearly--in others. But I can't--I don't want to make it
+myself."
+
+"But what do you want to do?"
+
+Marie laughed suddenly.
+
+"Do you know, my dear, I have half a mind to tell you what I do like to
+do--just to make you stare."
+
+"Well?" Billy's eyes were wide with interest.
+
+"I like best of anything to--darn stockings and make puddings."
+
+"Marie!"
+
+"Rank heresy, isn't it?" smiled Marie, tearfully. "But I do, truly. I
+love to weave the threads evenly in and out, and see a big hole close.
+As for the puddings I don't mean the common bread-and-butter kind, but
+the ones that have whites of eggs and fruit, and pretty quivery jellies
+all ruby and amber lights, you know."
+
+"You dear little piece of domesticity," laughed Billy. "Then why in the
+world don't you do these things?"
+
+"I can't, in my own kitchen; I can't afford a kitchen to do them in. And
+I just couldn't do them--right along--in other people's kitchens."
+
+"But why do you--play?"
+
+"I was brought up to it. You know we had money once, lots of it," sighed
+Marie, as if she were deploring a misfortune. "And mother was determined
+to have me musical. Even then, as a little tot, I liked pudding-making,
+and after my mud-pie days I was always begging mother to let me go down
+into the kitchen, to cook. But she wouldn't allow it, ever. She engaged
+the most expensive masters and set me practising, always practising.
+I simply had to learn music; and I learned it like the adding machine.
+Then afterward, when father died, and then mother, and the money flew
+away, why, of course I had to do something, so naturally I turned to
+the music. It was all I could do. But--well, you know how it is, dear. I
+teach, and teach well, perhaps, so far as the mechanical part goes; but
+as for the rest--I am always longing for a cozy corner with a basket of
+stockings to mend, or a kitchen where there is a pudding waiting to be
+made."
+
+"You poor dear!" cried Billy. "I've a pair of stockings now that needs
+attention, and I've been just longing for one of your 'quivery jellies
+all ruby and amber lights' ever since you mentioned them. But--well, is
+there anything I could do to help?"
+
+"Nothing, thank you," sighed Marie, rising wearily to her feet, and
+covering her eyes with her hand for a moment. "My head aches shockingly,
+but I've got to go this minute and instruct little Jennie Knowls how to
+play the wonderful scale of G with a black key in it. Besides, you do
+help me, you have helped me, you are always helping me, dear," she added
+remorsefully; "and it's wicked of me to make that shadow come to your
+eyes. Please don't think of it, or of me, any more." And with a
+choking little sob she hurried from the room, followed by the amazed,
+questioning, sorrowful eyes of Billy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+"I'M GOING TO WIN"
+
+
+Nearly all of Billy's friends knew that Bertram Henshaw was in love with
+Billy Neilson before Billy herself knew it. Not that they regarded it
+as anything serious--"it's only Bertram" was still said of him on almost
+all occasions. But to Bertram himself it was very serious.
+
+The world to Bertram, indeed, had come to assume a vastly different
+aspect from what it had displayed in times past. Heretofore it had been
+a plaything which like a juggler's tinsel ball might be tossed from hand
+to hand at will. Now it was no plaything--no glittering bauble. It
+was something big and serious and splendid--because Billy lived in it;
+something that demanded all his powers to do, and be--because Billy was
+watching; something that might be a Hades of torment or an Elysium of
+bliss--according to whether Billy said "no" or "yes."
+
+Since Thanksgiving Bertram had known that it was love--this consuming
+fire within him; and since Thanksgiving he had known, too, that it
+was jealousy--this fierce hatred of Calderwell. He was ashamed of the
+hatred. He told himself that it was unmanly, unkind, and unreasonable;
+and he vowed that he would overcome it. At times he even fancied that
+he had overcome it; but always the sight of Calderwell in Billy's little
+drawing-room or of even the man's card on Billy's silver tray was enough
+to show him that he had not.
+
+There were others, too, who annoyed Bertram not a little, foremost of
+these being his own brothers. Still he was not really worried about
+William and Cyril, he told himself. William he did not consider to be a
+marrying man; and Cyril--every one knew that Cyril was a woman-hater.
+He was doubtless attracted now only by Billy's music. There was no
+real rivalry to be feared from William and Cyril. But there was always
+Calderwell, and Calderwell was serious. Bertram decided, therefore,
+after some weeks of feverish unrest, that the only road to peace lay
+through a frank avowal of his feelings, and a direct appeal to Billy to
+give him the great boon of her love.
+
+Just here, however, Bertram met with an unexpected difficulty. He could
+not find words with which to make his avowal or to present his appeal.
+He was surprised and annoyed. Never before had he been at a loss for
+words--mere words. And it was not that he lacked opportunity. He
+walked, drove, and talked with Billy, and always she was companionable,
+attentive to what he had to say. Never was she cold or reserved. Never
+did she fail to greet him with a cheery smile.
+
+Bertram concluded, indeed, after a time, that she was too companionable,
+too cheery. He wished she would hesitate, stammer, blush; be a
+little shy. He wished that she would display surprise, annoyance,
+even--anything but that eternal air of comradeship. And then, one
+afternoon in the early twilight of a January day, he freed his mind,
+quite unexpectedly.
+
+"Billy, I wish you WOULDN'T be so--so friendly!" he exclaimed in a voice
+that was almost sharp.
+
+Billy laughed at first, but the next moment a shamed distress drove the
+merriment quite out of her face.
+
+"You mean that I presume on--on our friendship?" she stammered. "That
+you fear that I will again--shadow your footsteps?" It was the first
+time since the memorable night itself that Billy had ever in Bertram's
+presence referred to her young guardianship of his welfare. She realized
+now, suddenly, that she had just been giving the man before her some
+very "sisterly advice," and the thought sent a confused red to her
+cheeks.
+
+Bertram turned quickly.
+
+"Billy, that was the dearest and loveliest thing a girl ever did--only
+I was too great a chump to appreciate it!" finished Bertram in a voice
+that was not quite steady.
+
+"Thank you," smiled the girl, with a slow shake of her head and a
+relieved look in her eyes; "but I'm afraid I can't quite agree to that."
+The next moment she had demanded mischievously: "Why, then, pray, this
+unflattering objection to my--friendliness now?"
+
+"Because I don't want you for a friend, or a sister, or anything else
+that's related," stormed Bertram, with sudden vehemence. "I don't want
+you for anything but--a wife! Billy, WON'T you marry me?"
+
+Again Billy laughed--laughed until she saw the pained anger leap to the
+gray eyes before her; then she became grave at once.
+
+"Bertram, forgive me. I didn't think you could--you can't be--serious!"
+
+"But I am."
+
+Billy shook her head.
+
+"But you don't love me--not ME, Bertram. It's only the turn of my head
+or--or the tilt of my chin that you love--to paint," she protested,
+unconsciously echoing the words Calderwell had said to her weeks before.
+"I'm only another 'Face of a Girl.'"
+
+"You're the only 'Face of a girl' to me now, Billy," declared the man,
+with disarming tenderness.
+
+"No, no, not that," demurred Billy, in distress. "You don't mean it. You
+only think you do. It couldn't be that. It can't be!"
+
+"But it is, dear. I think I have loved you ever since that night long
+ago when I saw your dear, startled face appealing to me from beyond
+Seaver's hateful smile. And, Billy, I never went once with Seaver
+again--anywhere. Did you know that?"
+
+"No; but--I'm glad--so glad!"
+
+"And I'm glad, too. So you see, I must have loved you then, though
+unconsciously, perhaps; and I love you now."
+
+"No, no, please don't say that. It can't be--it really can't be. I--I
+don't love you--that way, Bertram."
+
+The man paled a little.
+
+"Billy--forgive me for asking, but it's so much to me--is it that there
+is--some one else?" His voice shook.
+
+"No, no, indeed! There is no one."
+
+"It's not--Calderwell?"
+
+Billy's forehead grew pink. She laughed nervously.
+
+"No, no, never!"
+
+"But there are others, so many others!"
+
+"Nonsense, Bertram; there's no one--no one, I assure you!"
+
+"It's not William, of course, nor Cyril. Cyril hates women."
+
+A deeper flush came to Billy's face. Her chin rose a little; and an odd
+defiance flashed from her eyes. But almost instantly it was gone, and a
+slow smile had come to her lips.
+
+"Yes, I know. Every one--says that Cyril hates women," she observed
+demurely.
+
+"Then, Billy, I sha'n't give up!" vowed Bertram, softly. "Sometime you
+WILL love me!"
+
+"No, no, I couldn't. That is, I'm not going to--to marry," stammered
+Billy.
+
+"Not going to marry!"
+
+"No. There's my music--you know how I love that, and how much it is to
+me. I don't think there'll ever be a man--that I'll love better."
+
+Bertram lifted his head. Very slowly he rose till his splendid six feet
+of clean-limbed strength and manly beauty towered away above the low
+chair in which Billy sat. His mouth showed new lines about the corners,
+and his eyes looked down very tenderly at the girl beside him; but
+his voice, when he spoke, had a light whimsicality that deceived even
+Billy's ears.
+
+"And so it's music--a cold, senseless thing of spidery marks on clean
+white paper--that is my only rival," he cried. "Then I'll warn you,
+Billy, I'll warn you. I'm going to win!" And with that he was gone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+"I'M NOT GOING TO MARRY"
+
+
+Billy did not know whether to be more amazed or amused at Bertram's
+proposal of marriage. She was vexed; she was very sure of that. To marry
+Bertram? Absurd!... Then she reflected that, after all, it was only
+Bertram, so she calmed herself.
+
+Still, it was annoying. She liked Bertram, she had always liked him. He
+was a nice boy, and a most congenial companion. He never bored her, as
+did some others; and he was always thoughtful of cushions and footstools
+and cups of tea when one was tired. He was, in fact, an ideal friend,
+just the sort she wanted; and it was such a pity that he must spoil it
+all now with this silly sentimentality! And of course he had spoiled it
+all. There was no going back now to their old friendliness. He would be
+morose or silly by turns, according to whether she frowned or smiled;
+or else he would take himself off in a tragic sort of way that was very
+disturbing. He had said, to be sure, that he would "win." Win, indeed!
+As if she could marry Bertram! When she married, her choice would fall
+upon a man, not a boy; a big, grave, earnest man to whom the world meant
+something; a man who loved music, of course; a man who would single her
+out from all the world, and show to her, and to her only, the depth
+and tenderness of his love; a man who--but she was not going to marry,
+anyway, remembered Billy, suddenly. And with that she began to cry. The
+whole thing was so "tiresome," she declared, and so "absurd."
+
+Billy rather dreaded her next meeting with Bertram. She feared--she knew
+not what. But, as it turned out, she need not have feared anything, for
+he met her tranquilly, cheerfully, as usual; and he did nothing and said
+nothing that he might not have done and said before that twilight chat
+took place.
+
+Billy was relieved. She concluded that, after all, Bertram was going
+to be sensible. She decided that she, too, would be sensible. She would
+accept him on this, his chosen plane, and she would think no more of his
+"nonsense."
+
+Billy threw herself then even more enthusiastically into her beloved
+work. She told Marie that after all was said and done, there could not
+be any man that would tip the scales one inch with music on the other
+side. She was a little hurt, it is true, when Marie only laughed and
+answered:
+
+"But what if the man and the music both happen to be on the same side,
+my dear; what then?"
+
+Marie's voice was wistful, in spite of the laugh--so wistful that it
+reminded Billy of their conversation a few weeks before.
+
+"But it is you, Marie, who want the stockings to darn and the puddings
+to make," she retorted playfully. "Not I! And, do you know? I believe I
+shall turn matchmaker yet, and find you a man; and the chiefest of his
+qualifications shall be that he's wretchedly hard on his hose, and that
+he adores puddings."
+
+"No, no, Miss Billy, don't, please!" begged the other, in quick terror.
+"Forget all I said the other day; please do! Don't tell--anybody!"
+
+She was so obviously distressed and frightened that Billy was puzzled.
+
+"There, there, 'twas only a jest, of course," she soothed her. "But,
+really Marie, it is the dear, domestic little mouse like yourself that
+ought to be somebody's wife--and that's the kind men are looking for,
+too."
+
+Marie gave a slow shake of her head.
+
+"Not the kind of man that is somebody, that does something," she
+objected; "and that's the only kind I could--love. HE wants a wife that
+is beautiful and clever, that can do things like himself--LIKE HIMSELF!"
+she iterated feverishly.
+
+Billy opened wide her eyes.
+
+"Why, Marie, one would think--you already knew--such a man," she cried.
+
+The little music teacher changed her position, and turned her eyes away.
+
+"I do, of course," she retorted in a merry voice, "lots of them. Don't
+you? Come, we've discussed my matrimonial prospects quite long enough,"
+she went on lightly. "You know we started with yours. Suppose we go back
+to those."
+
+"But I haven't any," demurred Billy, as she turned with a smile to greet
+Aunt Hannah, who had just entered the room. "I'm not going to marry; am
+I, Aunt Hannah?"
+
+"Er--what? Marry? My grief and conscience, what a question, Billy!
+Of course you're going to marry--when the time comes!" exclaimed Aunt
+Hannah.
+
+Billy laughed and shook her head vigorously. But even as she opened
+her lips to reply, Rosa appeared and announced that Mr. Calderwell was
+waiting down-stairs. Billy was angry then, for after the maid was gone,
+the merriment in Aunt Hannah's laugh only matched that in Marie's--and
+the intonation was unmistakable.
+
+"Well, I'm not!" declared Billy with pink cheeks and much indignation,
+as she left the room. And as if to convince herself, Marie, Aunt Hannah,
+and all the world that such was the case, she refused Calderwell so
+decidedly that night when he, for the half-dozenth time, laid his hand
+and heart at her feet, that even Calderwell himself was convinced--so
+far as his own case was concerned--and left town the next day.
+
+Bertram told Aunt Hannah afterward that he understood Mr. Calderwell
+had gone to parts unknown. To himself Bertram shamelessly owned that the
+more "unknown" they were, the better he himself would be pleased.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+MARIE FINDS A FRIEND
+
+
+It was on a very cold January afternoon, and Cyril was hurrying up the
+hill toward Billy's house, when he was startled to see a slender young
+woman sitting on a curbstone with her head against an electric-light
+post. He stopped abruptly.
+
+"I beg your pardon, but--why, Miss Hawthorn! It is Miss Hawthorn; isn't
+it?"
+
+Under his questioning eyes the girl's pale face became so painfully
+scarlet that in sheer pity the man turned his eyes away. He thought he
+had seen women blush before, but he decided now that he had not.
+
+"I'm sure--haven't I met you at Miss Neilson's? Are you ill? Can't I do
+something for you?" he begged.
+
+"Yes--no--that is, I AM Miss Hawthorn, and I've met you at Miss
+Neilson's," stammered the girl, faintly. "But there isn't anything,
+thank you, that you can do--Mr. Henshaw. I stopped to--rest."
+
+The man frowned.
+
+"But, surely--pardon me, Miss Hawthorn, but I can't think it your
+usual custom to choose an icy curbstone for a resting place, with the
+thermometer down to zero. You must be ill. Let me take you to Miss
+Neilson's."
+
+"No, no, thank you," cried the girl, struggling to her feet, the vivid
+red again flooding her face. "I have a lesson--to give."
+
+"Nonsense! You're not fit to give a lesson. Besides, they are all
+folderol, anyway, half of them. A dozen lessons, more or less, won't
+make any difference; they'll play just as well--and just as atrociously.
+Come, I insist upon taking you to Miss Neilson's."
+
+"No, no, thank you! I really mustn't. I--" She could say no more. A
+strong, yet very gentle hand had taken firm hold of her arm in such
+a way as half to support her. A force quite outside of herself was
+carrying her forward step by step--and Miss Hawthorn was not used to
+strong, gentle hands, nor yet to a force quite outside of herself.
+Neither was she accustomed to walk arm in arm with Mr. Cyril Henshaw to
+Miss Billy's door. When she reached there her cheeks were like red roses
+for color, and her eyes were like the stars for brightness. Yet a minute
+later, confronted by Miss Billy's astonished eyes, the stars and the
+roses fled, and a very white-faced girl fell over in a deathlike faint
+in Cyril Henshaw's arms.
+
+Marie was put to bed in the little room next to Billy's, and was
+peremptorily hushed when faint remonstrance was made. The next morning,
+white-faced and wide-eyed, she resolutely pulled herself half upright,
+and announced that she was all well and must go home--home to Marie was
+a six-by-nine hall bed-room in a South End lodging house.
+
+Very gently Billy pushed her back on the pillow and laid a detaining
+hand on her arm.
+
+"No, dear. Now, please be sensible and listen to reason. You are my
+guest. You did not know it, perhaps, for I'm afraid the invitation got a
+little delayed. But you're to stay--oh, lots of weeks."
+
+"I--stay here? Why, I can't--indeed, I can't," protested Marie.
+
+"But that isn't a bit of a nice way to accept an invitation,"
+disapproved Billy. "You should say, 'Thank you, I'd be delighted, I'm
+sure, and I'll stay.'"
+
+In spite of herself the little music teacher laughed, and in the laugh
+her tense muscles relaxed.
+
+"Miss Billy, Miss Billy, what is one to do with you? Surely you
+know--you must know that I can't do what you ask!"
+
+"I'm sure I don't see why not," argued Billy. "I'm merely giving you an
+invitation and all you have to do is to accept it."
+
+"But the invitation is only the kind way your heart has of covering
+another of your many charities," objected Marie; "besides, I have to
+teach. I have my living to earn."
+
+"But you can't," demurred the other. "That's just the trouble. Don't
+you see? The doctor said last night that you must not teach again this
+winter."
+
+"Not teach--again--this winter! No, no, he could not be so cruel as
+that!"
+
+"It wasn't cruel, dear; it was kind. You would be ill if you attempted
+it. Now you'll get better. He says all you need is rest and care--and
+that's exactly what I mean my guest shall have."
+
+Quick tears came to the sick girl's eyes.
+
+"There couldn't be a kinder heart than yours, Miss Billy," she murmured,
+"but I couldn't--I really couldn't be a burden to you like this. I shall
+go to some hospital."
+
+"But you aren't going to be a burden. You are going to be my friend and
+companion."
+
+"A companion--and in bed like this?"
+
+"Well, THAT wouldn't be impossible," smiled Billy; "but, as it happens
+you won't have to put that to the test, for you'll soon be up and
+dressed. The doctor says so. Now surely you will stay."
+
+There was a long pause. The little music teacher's eyes had left Billy's
+face and were circling the room, wistfully lingering on the hangings of
+filmy lace, the dainty wall covering, and the exquisite water colors in
+their white-and-gold frames. At last she drew a deep sigh.
+
+"Yes, I'll stay," she breathed rapturously; "but--you must let me help."
+
+"Help? Help what?"
+
+"Help you; your letters, your music-copying, your accounts--anything,
+everything. And if you don't let me help,"--the music teacher's
+voice was very stern now--"if you don't let me help, I shall go home
+just--as--soon--as--I--can--walk!"
+
+"Dear me!" dimpled Billy. "And is that all? Well, you shall help, and to
+your heart's content, too. In fact, I'm not at all sure that I sha'n't
+keep you darning stockings and making puddings all the time," she added
+mischievously, as she left the room.
+
+Miss Hawthorn sat up the next day. The day following, in one of Billy's
+"fluttery wrappers," as she called them, she walked all about the room.
+Very soon she was able to go down-stairs, and in an astonishingly short
+time she fitted into the daily life as if she had always been there. She
+was, moreover, of such assistance to Billy that even she herself could
+see the value of her work; and so she stayed, content.
+
+The little music teacher saw a good deal of Billy's friends then,
+particularly of the Henshaw brothers; and very glad was Billy to see the
+comradeship growing between them. She had known that William would
+be kind to the orphan girl, but she had feared that Marie would not
+understand Bertram's nonsense or Cyril's reserve. But very soon Bertram
+had begged, and obtained, permission to try to reproduce on canvas the
+sheen of the fine, fair hair, and the veiled bloom of the rose-leaf skin
+that were Marie's greatest charms; and already Cyril had unbent from his
+usual stiffness enough to play to her twice. So Billy's fears on that
+score were at an end.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE ENGAGEMENT OF ONE
+
+
+Many times during those winter days Billy thought of Marie's words: "But
+what if the man and the music both happen to be on the same side?" They
+worried her, to some extent, and, curiously, they pleased and displeased
+her at the same time.
+
+She told herself that she knew very well, of course, what Marie meant:
+it was Cyril; he was the man, and the music. But was Cyril beginning
+to care for her; and did she want him to? Very seriously one day Billy
+asked herself these questions; very calmly she argued the matter in her
+mind--as was Billy's way.
+
+She was proud, certainly, of what her influence had apparently done for
+Cyril. She was gratified that to her he was showing the real depth and
+beauty of his nature. It WAS flattering to feel that she, and only she,
+had thus won the regard of a professional woman-hater. Then, besides
+all this, there was his music--his glorious music. Think of the bliss
+of living ever with that! Imagine life with a man whose soul would be so
+perfectly attuned to hers that existence would be one grand harmony!
+Ah, that, truly, would be the ideal marriage! But she had planned not to
+marry. Billy frowned now, and tapped her foot nervously. It was, indeed,
+most puzzling--this question, and she did not want to make a mistake.
+Then, too, she did not wish to wound Cyril. If the dear man HAD come
+out of his icy prison, and were reaching out timid hands to her for
+her help, her interest, her love--the tragedy of it, if he met with
+no response!.... This vision of Cyril with outstretched hands, and of
+herself with cold, averted eyes was the last straw in the balance with
+Billy. She decided suddenly that she did care for Cyril--a little; and
+that she probably could care for him a great deal. With this thought,
+Billy blushed--already in her own mind she was as good as pledged to
+Cyril.
+
+It was a great change for Billy--this sudden leap from girlhood and
+irresponsibility to womanhood and care; but she took it fearlessly,
+resolutely. If she was to be Cyril's wife she must make herself fit
+for it--and in pursuance of this high ideal she followed Marie into the
+kitchen the very next time the little music teacher went out to make one
+of her dainty desserts that the family liked so well.
+
+"I'll just watch, if you don't mind," announced Billy.
+
+"Why, of course not," smiled Marie, "but I thought you didn't like to
+make puddings."
+
+"I don't," owned Billy, cheerfully.
+
+"Then why this--watchfulness?"
+
+"Nothing, only I thought it might be just as well if I knew how to make
+them. You know how Cyril--that is, ALL the Henshaw boys like every kind
+you make."
+
+The egg in Marie's hand slipped from her fingers and crashed untidily
+on the shelf. With a gleeful laugh Billy welcomed the diversion. She had
+not meant to speak so plainly. It was one thing to try to fit herself
+to be Cyril's wife, and quite another to display those efforts so openly
+before the world.
+
+The pudding was made at last, but Marie proved to be a nervous teacher.
+Her hand shook, and her memory almost failed her at one or two critical
+points. Billy laughingly said that it must be stage fright, owing to
+the presence of herself as spectator; and with this Marie promptly, and
+somewhat effusively, agreed.
+
+So very busy was Billy during the next few days, acquiring her new
+domesticity, that she did not notice how little she was seeing of Cyril.
+Then she suddenly realized it, and asked herself the reason for it.
+Cyril was at the house certainly, just as frequently as he had been; but
+she saw that a new shyness in herself had developed which was causing
+her to be restless in his presence, and was leading her to like better
+to have Marie or Aunt Hannah in the room when he called. She discovered,
+too, that she welcomed William, and even Bertram, with peculiar
+enthusiasm--if they happened to interrupt a tete-a-tete with Cyril.
+
+Billy was disturbed at this. She told herself that this shyness was not
+strange, perhaps, inasmuch as her ideas in regard to love and marriage
+had undergone so abrupt a change; but it must be overcome. If she was to
+be Cyril's wife, she must like to be with him--and of course she really
+did like to be with him, for she had enjoyed his companionship very
+much during all these past weeks. She set herself therefore, now,
+determinedly to cultivating Cyril.
+
+It was then that Billy made a strange and fearsome discovery: there were
+some things about Cyril that she did--not--like!
+
+Billy was inexpressibly shocked. Heretofore he had been so high, so
+irreproachable, so god-like!--but heretofore he had been a friend.
+Now he was appearing in a new role--though unconsciously, she knew.
+Heretofore she had looked at him with eyes that saw only the delightful
+and marvelous unfolding of a coldly reserved nature under the warmth of
+her own encouraging smile. Now she looked at him with eyes that saw only
+the possibilities of that same nature when it should have been unfolded
+in a lifelong companionship. And what she saw frightened her. There was
+still the music--she acknowledged that; but it had come to Billy with
+overwhelming force that music, after all, was not everything. The man
+counted, as well. Very frankly then Billy stated the case to herself.
+
+"What passes for 'fascinating mystery' in him now will be plain
+moroseness--sometime. He is 'taciturn' now; he'll be--cross, then. It is
+'erratic' when he won't play the piano to-day; but a few years from now,
+when he refuses some simple request of mine, it will be--stubbornness.
+All this it will be--if I don't love him; and I don't. I know I don't.
+Besides, we aren't really congenial. I like people around; he doesn't.
+I like to go to plays; he doesn't. He likes rainy days; I abhor them.
+There is no doubt of it--life with him would not be one grand harmony;
+it would be one jangling discord. I simply cannot marry him. I shall
+have to break the engagement!"
+
+Billy spoke with regretful sorrow. It was evident that she grieved to
+bring pain to Cyril. Then suddenly the gloom left her face: she had
+remembered that the "engagement" was just three weeks old--and was a
+profound secret, not only to the bridegroom elect, but to all the world
+as well--save herself!
+
+Billy was very happy after that. She sang about the house all day, and
+she danced sometimes from room to room, so light were her feet and her
+heart. She made no more puddings with Marie's supervision, but she was
+particularly careful to have the little music teacher or Aunt Hannah
+with her when Cyril called. She made up her mind, it is true, that she
+had been mistaken, and that Cyril did not love her; still she wished to
+be on the safe side, and she became more and more averse to being left
+alone with him for any length of time.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+CYRIL HAS SOMETHING TO SAY
+
+
+Long before spring Billy was forced to own to herself that her fancied
+security from lovemaking on the part of Cyril no longer existed. She
+began to suspect that there was reason for her fears. Cyril certainly
+was "different." He was more approachable, less reserved, even with
+Marie and Aunt Hannah. He was not nearly so taciturn, either, and he
+was much more gracious about his playing. Even Marie dared to ask him
+frequently for music, and he never refused her request. Three times he
+had taken Billy to some play that she wanted to see, and he had invited
+Marie, too, besides Aunt Hannah, which had pleased Billy very much.
+He had been at the same time so genial and so gallant that Billy had
+declared to Marie afterward that he did not seem like himself at all,
+but like some one else.
+
+Marie had disagreed with her, it is true, and had said stiffly:
+
+"I'm sure I thought he seemed very much like himself." But that had not
+changed Billy's opinion at all.
+
+To Billy's mind, nothing but love could so have softened the stern Cyril
+she had known. She was, therefore, all the more careful these days to
+avoid a tete-a-tete with him, though she was not always successful,
+particularly owing to Marie's unaccountable perverseness in so often
+having letters to write or work to do, just when Billy most wanted
+her to make a safe third with herself and Cyril. It was upon such an
+occasion, after Marie had abruptly left them alone together, that Cyril
+had observed, a little sharply:
+
+"Billy, I wish you wouldn't say again what you said ten minutes ago when
+Miss Marie was here."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"A very silly reference to that old notion that you and every one else
+seem to have that I am a 'woman-hater.'"
+
+Billy's heart skipped a beat. One thought, pounded through her brain and
+dinned itself into her ears--at all costs Cyril must not be allowed to
+say that which she so feared; he must be saved from himself.
+
+"Woman-hater? Why, of course you're a woman-hater," she cried merrily.
+"I'm sure, I--I think it's lovely to be a woman-hater."
+
+The man opened wide his eyes; then he frowned angrily.
+
+"Nonsense, Billy, I know better. Besides, I'm in earnest, and I'm not a
+woman-hater."
+
+"Oh, but every one says you are," chattered Billy. "And, after all, you
+know it IS distinguishing!"
+
+With a disdainful exclamation the man sprang to his feet. For a time he
+paced the room in silence, watched by Billy's fearful eyes; then he came
+back and dropped into the low chair at Billy's side. His whole manner
+had undergone a complete change. He was almost shamefaced as he said:
+
+"Billy, I suppose I might as well own up. I don't think I did think much
+of women until I saw--you."
+
+Billy swallowed and wet her lips. She tried to speak; but before she
+could form the words the man went on with his remarks; and Billy did not
+know whether to be the more relieved or frightened thereat.
+
+"But you see now it's different. That's why I don't like to sail any
+longer under false colors. There's been a change--a great and wonderful
+change that I hardly understand myself."
+
+"That's it! You don't understand it, I'm sure," interposed Billy,
+feverishly. "It may not be such a change, after all. You may be
+deceiving yourself," she finished hopefully.
+
+The man sighed.
+
+"I can't wonder you think so, of course," he almost groaned. "I was
+afraid it would be like that. When one's been painted black all one's
+life, it's not easy to change one's color, of course."
+
+"Oh, but I didn't say that black wasn't a very nice color," stammered
+Billy, a little wildly.
+
+"Thank you." Cyril's heavy brows rose and fell the fraction of an inch.
+"Still, I must confess that just now I should prefer another shade."
+
+He paused, and Billy cast distractedly about in her mind for a simple,
+natural change of subject. She had just decided to ask him what he
+thought of the condition of the Brittany peasants, when he questioned
+abruptly, and in a voice that was not quite steady:
+
+"Billy, what should you say if I should tell you that the avowed
+woman-hater had strayed so far from the prescribed path as to--to like
+one woman well enough as to want to--marry her?"
+
+The word was like a match to the gunpowder of Billy's fears. Her
+self-control was shattered instantly into bits.
+
+"Marry? No, no, you wouldn't--you couldn't really be thinking of that,"
+she babbled, growing red and white by turns. "Only think how a wife
+would--would b-bother you!"
+
+"Bother me? When I loved her?"
+
+"But just think--remember! She'd want cushions and rugs and curtains,
+and you don't like them; and she'd always be talking and laughing when
+you wanted quiet; and she--she'd want to drag you out to plays and
+parties and--and everywhere. Indeed, Cyril, I'm sure you'd never like a
+wife--long!" Billy stopped only because she had no breath with which to
+continue.
+
+Cyril laughed a little grimly.
+
+"You don't draw a very attractive picture, Billy. Still, I'm not afraid.
+I don't think this particular--wife would do any of those things--to
+trouble me."
+
+"Oh, but you don't know, you can't tell," argued the girl. "Besides, you
+have had so little experience with women that you'd just be sure to
+make a mistake at first. You want to look around very carefully--very
+carefully, before you decide."
+
+"I have looked around, and very carefully, Billy. I know that in all the
+world there is just one woman for me."
+
+Billy struggled to her feet. Mingled pain and terror looked from her
+eyes. She began to speak wildly, incoherently. She wondered afterward
+just what she would have said if Aunt Hannah had not come into the room
+at that moment and announced that Bertram was at the door to take her
+for a sleigh-ride if she cared to go.
+
+"Of course she'll go," declared Cyril, promptly, answering for her.
+"It is time I was off anyhow." To Billy, he said in a low voice: "You
+haven't been very encouraging, little girl--in fact, you've been mighty
+discouraging. But some day--some other day, I'll try to make clear to
+you--many things."
+
+Billy greeted Bertram very cordially. It was such a relief--his cheery,
+genial companionship! The air, too, was bracing, and all the world
+lay under a snow-white blanket of sparkling purity. Everything was so
+beautiful, so restful!
+
+It was not surprising, perhaps, that the very frankness of Billy's joy
+misled Bertram a little. His blood tingled at her nearness, and his eyes
+grew deep and tender as he looked down at her happy face. But of all the
+eager words that were so near his lips, not one reached the girl's ears
+until the good-byes were said; then wistfully Bertram hazarded:
+
+"Billy, don't you think, sometimes, that I'm gaining--just a little on
+that rival of mine--that music?"
+
+Billy's face clouded. She shook her head gently.
+
+"Bertram, please don't--when we've had such a beautiful hour together,"
+she begged. "It troubles me. If you do, I can't go--again."
+
+"But you shall go again," cried Bertram, bravely smiling straight into
+her eyes. "And there sha'n't ever anything in the world trouble you,
+either--that I can help!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+WILLIAM IS WORRIED
+
+
+Billy's sleigh-ride had been due to the kindness of a belated winter
+storm that had surprised every one the last of March. After that, March,
+as if ashamed of her untoward behavior, donned her sweetest smiles and
+"went out" like the proverbial lamb. With the coming of April, and the
+stirring of life in the trees, Billy, too, began to be restless; and at
+the earliest possible moment she made her plans for her long anticipated
+"digging in the dirt."
+
+Just here, much to her surprise, she met with wonderful assistance from
+Bertram. He seemed to know just when and where and how to dig, and he
+displayed suddenly a remarkable knowledge of landscape gardening. (That
+this knowledge was as recent in its acquirement as it was sudden in its
+display, Billy did not know.) Very learnedly he talked of perennials and
+annuals; and without hesitation he made out a list of flowering shrubs
+and plants that would give her a "succession of bloom throughout
+the season." His words and phrases smacked loudly of the very newest
+florists' catalogues, but Billy did not notice that. She only wondered
+at the seemingly exhaustless source of his wisdom.
+
+"I suspect 'twould have been better if we'd begun things last fall," he
+told her frowningly one day. "But there's plenty we can do now anyway;
+and we'll put in some quick-growing things, just for this season, until
+we can get the more permanent things established."
+
+And so they worked together, studying, scheming, ordering plants
+and seeds, their two heads close together above the gaily colored
+catalogues. Later there was the work itself to be done, and though
+strong men did the heavier part, there was yet plenty left for Billy's
+eager fingers--and for Bertram's. And if sometimes in the intimacy of
+seed-sowing and plant-setting, the touch of the slenderer fingers sent
+a thrill through the browner ones, Bertram made no sign. He was careful
+always to be the cheerful, helpful assistant--and that was all.
+
+Billy, it is true, was a little disturbed at being quite so much with
+Bertram. She dreaded a repetition of some such words as had been uttered
+at the end of the sleigh-ride. She told herself that she had no right
+to grieve Bertram, to make it hard for him by being with him; but at
+the very next breath, she could but question; did she grieve him? Was
+it hard for him to have her with him? Then she would glance at his eager
+face and meet his buoyant smile--and answer "no." After that, for a
+time, at least, her fears would be less.
+
+Systematically Billy avoided Cyril these days. She could not forget his
+promise to make many things clear to her some day. She thought she knew
+what he meant--that he would try to convince her (as she had tried to
+convince herself) that she would make a good wife for him.
+
+Billy was very sure that if Cyril could be prevented from speaking his
+mind just now, his mind would change in time; hence her determination to
+give his mind that opportunity.
+
+Billy's avoidance of Cyril was the more easily accomplished because she
+was for a time taking a complete rest from her music. The new songs
+had been finished and sent to the publishers. There was no excuse,
+therefore, for Cyril's coming to the house on that score; and, indeed,
+he seemed of his own accord to be making only infrequent visits now.
+Billy was pleased, particularly as Marie was not there to play third
+party. Marie had taken up her teaching again, much to Billy's distress.
+
+"But I can't stay here always, like this," Marie had protested.
+
+"But I should like to keep you!" Billy had responded, with no less
+decision.
+
+Marie had been firm, however, and had gone, leaving the little house
+lonely without her.
+
+Aside from her work in the garden Billy as resolutely avoided Bertram as
+she did Cyril. It was natural, therefore, that at this crisis she should
+turn to William with a peculiar feeling of restfulness. He, at least,
+would be safe, she told herself. So she frankly welcomed his every
+appearance, sung to him, played to him, and took long walks with him
+to see some wonderful bracelet or necklace that he had discovered in a
+dingy little curio-shop.
+
+William was delighted. He was very fond of his namesake, and he had
+secretly chafed a little at the way his younger brothers had monopolized
+her attention. He was rejoiced now that she seemed to be turning to him
+for companionship; and very eagerly he accepted all the time she could
+give him.
+
+William had, in truth, been growing more and more lonely ever since
+Billy's brief stay beneath his roof years before. Those few short weeks
+of her merry presence had shown him how very forlorn the house was
+without it. More and more sorrowfully during past years, his thoughts
+had gone back to the little white flannel bundle and to the dear hopes
+it had carried so long ago. If the boy had only lived, thought William,
+mournfully, there would not now have been that dreary silence in his
+home, and that sore ache in his heart.
+
+Very soon after William had first seen Billy, he began to lay wonderful
+plans, and in every plan was Billy. She was not his child by flesh and
+blood, he acknowledged, but she was his by right of love and needed
+care. In fancy he looked straight down the years ahead, and everywhere
+he saw Billy, a loving, much-loved daughter, the joy of his life, the
+solace of his declining years.
+
+To no one had William talked of this--and to no one did he show the
+bitterness of his grief when he saw his vision fade into nothingness
+through Billy's unchanging refusal to live in his home. Only he himself
+knew the heartache, the loneliness, the almost unbearable longing of
+the past winter months while Billy had lived at Hillside; and only he
+himself knew now the almost overwhelming joy that was his because of
+what he thought he saw in Billy's changed attitude toward himself.
+
+Great as was William's joy, however, his caution was greater. He said
+nothing to Billy of his new hopes, though he did try to pave the way by
+dropping an occasional word about the loneliness of the Beacon Street
+house since she went away. There was something else, too, that caused
+William to be silent--what he thought he saw between Billy and Bertram.
+That Bertram was in love with Billy, he guessed; but that Billy was not
+in love with Bertram he very much feared. He hesitated almost to speak
+or move lest something he should say or do should, just at the critical
+moment, turn matters the wrong way. To William this marriage of Bertram
+and Billy was an ideal method of solving the problem, as of course Billy
+would come there to the house to live, and he would have his "daughter"
+after all. But as the days passed, and he could see no progress
+on Bertram's part, no change in Billy, he began to be seriously
+worried--and to show it.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+CLASS DAY
+
+
+Early in June Billy announced her intention of not going away at all
+that summer.
+
+"I don't need it," she declared. "I have this cool, beautiful house,
+this air, this sunshine, this adorable view. Besides, I've got a scheme
+I mean to carry out."
+
+There was some consternation among Billy's friends when they found out
+what this "scheme" was: sundry of Billy's humbler acquaintances were to
+share the house, the air, the sunshine, and the adorable view with her.
+
+"But, my dear Billy," Bertram cried, aghast, "you don't mean to say that
+you are going to turn your beautiful little house into a fresh-air place
+for Boston's slum children!"
+
+"Not a bit of it," smiled the girl, "though I'd like to, really, if I
+could," she added, perversely. "But this is quite another thing. It's no
+slum work, no charity. In the first place my guests aren't quite so poor
+as that, and they're much too proud to be reached by the avowed charity
+worker. But they need it just the same."
+
+"But you haven't much spare room; have you?" questioned Bertram.
+
+"No, unfortunately; so I shall have to take only two or three at a time,
+and keep them maybe a week or ten days. It's just a sugar plum, Bertram.
+Truly it is," she added whimsically, but with a tender light in her
+eyes.
+
+"But who are these people?" Bertram's face had lost its look of shocked
+surprise, and his voice expressed genuine interest.
+
+"Well, to begin with, there's Marie. She'll stay all summer and help me
+entertain my guests; at the same time her duties won't be arduous,
+and she'll get a little playtime herself. One week I'm going to have a
+little old maid who keeps a lodging house in the West End. For uncounted
+years she's been practically tied to a doorbell, with never a whole day
+to breathe free. I've made arrangements there for a sister to keep house
+a whole week, and I'm going to show this little old maid things she
+hasn't seen for years: the ocean, the green fields, and a summer play or
+two, perhaps.
+
+"Then there's a little couple that live in a third-story flat in South
+Boston. They're young and like good times; but the man is on a small
+salary, and they have had lots of sickness. He's been out so much he
+can't take any vacation, and they wouldn't have any money to go anywhere
+if he could. Well, I'm going to have them a week. She'll be here all the
+time, and he'll come out at night, of course.
+
+"Another one is a widow with six children. The children are already
+provided for by a fresh-air society, but the woman I'm going to take,
+and--and give her a whole week of food that she didn't have to cook
+herself. Another one is a woman who is not so very poor, but who has
+lost her baby, and is blue and discouraged. There are some children,
+too, one crippled, and a boy who says he's 'just lonesome.' And there
+are--really, Bertram, there is no end to them."
+
+"I can well believe that," declared Bertram, with emphasis, "so far as
+your generous heart is concerned."
+
+Billy colored and looked distressed.
+
+"But it isn't generosity or charity at all, Bertram," she protested.
+"You are mistaken when you think it is--really! Why, I shall enjoy every
+bit of it just as well as they do--and better, perhaps."
+
+"But you stay here--in the city--all summer for their sakes."
+
+"What if I do? Besides, this isn't the real city," argued Billy, "with
+all these trees and lawns about one. And another thing," she added,
+leaning forward confidentially, "I might as well confess, Bertram, you
+couldn't hire me to leave the place this summer--not while all these
+things I planted are coming up!"
+
+Bertram laughed; but for some reason he looked wonderfully happy as he
+turned away.
+
+On the fifteenth of June Kate and her husband arrived from the West. A
+young brother of Mr. Hartwell's was to be graduated from Harvard, and
+Kate said they had come on to represent the family, as the elder Mr. and
+Mrs. Hartwell were not strong enough to undertake the journey. Kate was
+looking well and happy. She greeted Billy with effusive cordiality, and
+openly expressed her admiration of Hillside. She looked very keenly into
+her brothers' face, and seemed well pleased with the appearance of Cyril
+and Bertram, but not so much so with William's countenance.
+
+"William does NOT look well," she declared one day when she and Billy
+were alone together.
+
+"Sick? Uncle William sick? Oh, I hope not!" cried the girl.
+
+"I don't know whether it's 'sick' or not," returned Mrs. Hartwell. "But
+it's something. He's troubled. I'm going to speak to him. He's worried
+over something; and he's grown terribly thin."
+
+"But he's always thin," reasoned Billy.
+
+"I know, but not like this--ever. You don't notice it, perhaps, or
+realize it, seeing him every day as you do. But I know something
+troubles him."
+
+"Oh, I hope not," murmured Billy, with anxious eyes. "We don't want
+Uncle William troubled: we all love him too well."
+
+Mrs. Hartwell did not at once reply; but for a long minute she
+thoughtfully studied Billy's face as it was bent above the sewing in
+Billy's hand. When she did speak she had changed the subject.
+
+Young Hartwell was to deliver the Ivy Oration in the Stadium on Class
+Day, and all the Henshaws were looking eagerly forward to the occasion.
+
+"You have seen the Stadium, of course," said Bertram to Billy, a few
+days before the anticipated Friday.
+
+"Only from across the river."
+
+"Is that so? And you've never been here Class Day, either. Good! Then
+you've got a treat in store. Just wait and see!"
+
+And Billy waited--and she saw. Billy began to see, in fact, before Class
+Day. Young Hartwell was a popular fellow, and he was eager to have his
+friends meet Billy and the Henshaws. He was a member of the Institute
+of 1770, D. K. E., Stylus, Signet, Round Table, and Hasty Pudding Clubs,
+and nearly every one of these had some sort of function planned for
+Class-Day week. By the time the day itself arrived Billy was almost as
+excited as was young Hartwell himself.
+
+It rained Class-Day morning, but at nine o'clock the sun came out and
+drove the clouds away, much to every one's delight. Billy's day began
+at noon with the spread given by the Hasty Pudding Club. Billy wondered
+afterward how many times that day remarks like these were made to her:
+
+"You've been here Class Day before, of course. You've seen the
+confetti-throwing!... No? Well, you just wait!"
+
+At ten minutes of four Billy and Mrs. Hartwell, with Mr. Hartwell and
+Bertram as escorts, entered the cool, echoing shadows under the Stadium,
+and then out in the sunlight they began to climb the broad steps to
+their seats.
+
+"I wanted them high up, you see," explained Bertram, "because you can
+get the effect so much better. There, here we are!"
+
+For the first time Billy turned and looked about her. She gave a low cry
+of delight.
+
+"Oh, oh, how beautiful--how wonderfully beautiful!"
+
+"You just wait!" crowed Bertram. "If you think this is beautiful, you
+just wait!"
+
+Billy did not seem to hear him. Her eyes were sweeping the wonderful
+scene before her, and her face was aglow with delight.
+
+First there was the great amphitheater itself. Only the wide curve of
+the horseshoe was roped off for to-day's audience. Beyond lay the two
+sides with their tier above tier of empty seats, almost dazzling in
+the sunshine. Within the roped-off curve the scene was of kaleidoscopic
+beauty. Charmingly gowned young women and carefully groomed young men
+were everywhere, stirring, chatting, laughing. Gay-colored parasols and
+flower-garden hats made here and there brilliant splashes of rainbow
+tints. Above was an almost cloudless canopy of blue, and at the far
+horizon, earth and sky met and made a picture that was like a wondrous
+painted curtain hung from heaven itself.
+
+At the first sound of the distant band that told of the graduates'
+coming, Bertram said almost wistfully:
+
+"Class Day is the only time when I feel 'out of it.' You see I'm the
+first male Henshaw for ages that hasn't been through Harvard; and
+to-day, you know, is the time when the old grads come back and do stunts
+like the kids--if they can (and some of them can all right!). They march
+in by classes ahead of the seniors, and vie with each other in giving
+their yells. You'll see Cyril and William, if your eyes are sharp
+enough--and you'll see them as you never saw them before."
+
+Far down the green field Billy spied now the long black line of moving
+figures with a band in the lead. Nearer and nearer it came until,
+greeted by a mighty roar from thousands of throats, the leaders swept
+into the great bowl of the horseshoe curve.
+
+And how they yelled and cheered--those men whose first Class Day lay
+five, ten, fifteen, even twenty or more years behind them, as told by
+the banners which they so proudly carried. How they got their heads
+together and gave the "Rah! Rah! Rah!" with unswerving eyes on their
+leader! How they beat the air with their hats in time to their lusty
+shouts! And how the throngs above cheered and clapped in answer, until
+they almost split their throats--and did split their gloves--especially
+when the black-gowned seniors swept into view.
+
+And when the curving line of black had become one solid mass of
+humanity that filled the bowl from side to side, the vast throng seated
+themselves, and a great hush fell while the Glee Club sang.
+
+Young Hartwell proved to be a good speaker, and his ringing voice
+reached even the topmost tier of seats. Billy was charmed and
+interested. Everything she saw and heard was but a new source of
+enjoyment, and she had quite forgotten the thing for which she was to
+"wait," when she saw the ushers passing through the aisles with their
+baskets of many-hued packages of confetti and countless rolls of paper
+ribbon.
+
+It began then, the merry war between the students below and the throng
+above. In a trice the air was filled with shimmering bits of red, blue,
+white, green, purple, pink, and yellow. From all directions fluttering
+streamers that showed every color of the rainbow, were flung to the
+breeze until, upheld by the supporting wires, they made a fairy lace
+work of marvelous beauty.
+
+"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Billy, her eyes misty with emotion. "I think I never
+saw anything in my life so lovely!
+
+"I thought you'd like it," gloried Bertram. "You know I said to wait!"
+
+But even with this, Class Day for Billy was not finished. There was
+still Hartwell's own spread from six to eight, and after that there were
+the President's reception, and dancing in the Memorial Hall and in the
+Gymnasium. There was the Fairyland of the yard, too, softly aglow
+with moving throngs of beautiful women and gallant men. But what Billy
+remembered best of all was the exquisite harmony that came to her
+through the hushed night air when the Glee Club sang Fair Harvard on the
+steps of Holworthy Hall.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+SISTER KATE AGAIN
+
+
+It was on the Sunday following Class Day that Mrs. Hartwell carried out
+her determination to "speak to William." The West had not taken from
+Kate her love of managing, and she thought she saw now a matter that
+sorely needed her guiding hand.
+
+William's thin face, anxious looks, and nervous manner had troubled
+her ever since she came. Then one day, very suddenly, had come
+enlightenment: William was in love--and with Billy.
+
+Mrs. Hartwell watched William very closely after that. She saw his eyes
+follow Billy fondly, yet anxiously. She saw his open joy at being with
+her, and at any little attention, word, or look that the girl gave him.
+She remembered, too, something that Bertram had said about William's
+grief because Billy would not live at the Strata. She thought she saw
+something else, also: that Billy was fond of William, but that William
+did not know it; hence his frequent troubled scrutiny of her face.
+Why these two should play at cross purposes Sister Kate could not
+understand. She smiled, however, confidently: they should not play at
+cross purposes much longer, she declared.
+
+On Sunday afternoon Kate asked her eldest brother to take her driving.
+
+"Not a motor car; I want a horse--that will let me talk," she said.
+
+"Certainly," agreed William, with a smile; but Bertram, who chanced to
+hear her, put in the sly comment: "As if ANY horse could prevent--that!"
+
+On the drive Kate began to talk at once, but she did not plunge into
+the subject nearest her heart until she had adroitly led William into a
+glowing enumeration of Billy's many charming characteristics; then she
+said:
+
+"William, why don't you take Billy home with you?"
+
+William stirred uneasily as he always did when anything annoyed him.
+
+"My dear Kate, there is nothing I should like better to do," he replied.
+
+"Then why don't you do it?"
+
+"I--hope to, sometime."
+
+"But why not now?"
+
+"I'm afraid Billy is not quite--ready."
+
+"Nonsense! A young girl like that does not know her own mind lots
+of times. Just press the matter a little. Love will work
+wonders--sometimes."
+
+William blushed like a girl. To him her words had but one
+meaning--Bertram's love for Billy. William had never spoken of this
+suspected love affair to any one. He had even thought that he was the
+only one that had discovered it. To hear his sister refer thus lightly
+to it came therefore in the nature of a shock to him.
+
+"Then you have--seen it--too?" he stammered
+
+"'Seen it, too,'" laughed Kate, with her confident eyes on William's
+flushed face, "I should say I had seen it! Any one could see it."
+
+William blushed again. Love to him had always been something sacred;
+something that called for hushed voices and twilight. This merry
+discussion in the sunlight of even another's love was disconcerting.
+
+"Now come, William," resumed Kate, after a moment; "speak to Billy, and
+have the matter settled once for all. It's worrying you. I can see it
+is."
+
+Again William stirred uneasily.
+
+"But, Kate, I can't do anything. I told you before; I don't believe
+Billy is--ready."
+
+"Nonsense! Ask her."
+
+"But Kate, a girl won't marry against her will!"
+
+"I don't believe it is against her will."
+
+"Kate! Honestly?"
+
+"Honestly! I've watched her."
+
+"Then I WILL speak," cried the man, his face alight, "if--if you think
+anything I can say would--help. There is nothing--nothing in all this
+world that I so desire, Kate, as to have that little girl back home. And
+of course that would do it. She'd live there, you know."
+
+"Why, of--course," murmured Kate, with a puzzled frown. There was
+something in this last remark of William's that she did not quite
+understand. Surely he could not suppose that she had any idea that after
+he had married Billy they would go to live anywhere else;--she thought.
+For a moment she considered the matter vaguely; then she turned her
+attention to something else. She was the more ready to do this because
+she believed that she had said enough for the present: it was well to
+sow seeds, but it was also well to let them have a chance to grow, she
+told herself.
+
+Mrs. Hartwell's next move was to speak to Billy, and she was careful to
+do this at once, so that she might pave the way for William.
+
+She began her conversation with an ingratiating smile and the words:
+
+"Well, Billy, I've been doing a little detective work on my own
+account."
+
+"Detective work?"
+
+"Yes; about William. You know I told you the other day how troubled and
+anxious he looked to me. Well, I've found out what's the matter."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Yourself."
+
+"Myself! Why, Mrs. Hartwell, what can you mean?"
+
+The elder lady smiled significantly.
+
+"Oh, it's merely another case, my dear, of 'faint heart never won fair
+lady.' I've been helping on the faint heart; that's all."
+
+"But I don't understand."
+
+"No? I can't believe you quite mean that, my dear. Surely you must know
+how earnestly my brother William is longing for you to go back and live
+with him."
+
+Like William, Billy flushed scarlet.
+
+"Mrs. Hartwell, certainly no one could know better than YOURSELF why
+that is quite impossible," she frowned.
+
+The other colored confusedly.
+
+"I understand, of course, what you mean. And, Billy, I'll confess that
+I've been sorry lots of times, since, that I spoke as I did to you,
+particularly when I saw how it grieved my brother William to have you go
+away. If I blundered then, I'm sorry; and perhaps I did blunder. At all
+events, that is only the more reason now why I am so anxious to do what
+I can to rectify that old mistake, and plead William's suit."
+
+To Mrs. Hartwell's blank amazement, Billy laughed outright.
+
+"'William's suit'!" she quoted merrily. "Why, Mrs. Hartwell, there isn't
+any 'suit' to it. Uncle William doesn't want me to marry him!"
+
+"Indeed he does."
+
+Billy stopped laughing, and sat suddenly erect.
+
+"MRS. HARTWELL!"
+
+"Billy, is it possible that you did not know this?"
+
+"Indeed I don't know it, and--excuse me, but I don't think you do,
+either."
+
+"But I do. I've talked with him, and he's very much in earnest," urged
+Mrs. Hartwell, speaking very rapidly. "He says there's nothing in all
+the world that he so desires. And, Billy, you do care for him--I know
+you do!"
+
+"Why, of course I care for him--but not--that way."
+
+"But, Billy, think!" Mrs. Hartwell was very earnest now, and a little
+frightened. She felt that she must bring Billy to terms in some way
+now that William had been encouraged to put his fate to the test. "Just
+remember how good William has always been to you, and think what you
+have been, and may BE--if you only will--in his lonely life. Think of
+his great sorrow years ago. Think of this dreary waste of years between.
+Think how now his heart has turned to you for love and comfort and rest.
+Billy, you can't turn away!--you can't find it in your heart to turn
+away from that dear, good man who loves you so!" Mrs. Hartwell's voice
+shook effectively, and even her eyes looked through tears. Mentally
+she was congratulating herself: she had not supposed she could make so
+touching an appeal.
+
+In the chair opposite the girl sat very still. She was pale, and her
+eyes showed a frightened questioning in their depths. For a long minute
+she said nothing, then she rose dazedly to her feet.
+
+"Mrs. Hartwell, please do not speak of this to any one," she begged in
+a low voice. "I--I am taken quite by surprise. I shall have to think it
+out--alone."
+
+Billy did not sleep well that night. Always before her eyes was the
+vision of William's face; and always in her ears was the echo of Mrs.
+Hartwell's words: "Remember how good William has always been to you.
+Think of his great sorrow years ago. Think of this dreary waste of years
+between. Think how now his heart has turned to you for love and comfort
+and rest."
+
+For a time Billy tossed about on her bed trying to close her eyes to
+the vision and her ears to the echo. Then, finding that neither was
+possible, she set herself earnestly to thinking the matter out.
+
+William loved her. Extraordinary as it seemed, such was the fact; Mrs.
+Hartwell said so. And now--what must she do; what could she do? She
+loved no one--of that she was very sure. She was even beginning to
+think that she would never love any one. There were Calderwell, Cyril,
+Bertram, to say nothing of sundry others, who had loved her, apparently,
+but whom she could not love. Such being the case, if she were, indeed,
+incapable of love herself, why should she not make the sacrifice of
+giving up her career, her independence, and in that way bring this great
+joy to Uncle William's heart?... Even as she said the "Uncle William"
+to herself, Billy bit her lip and realized that she must no longer say
+"Uncle" William--if she married him.
+
+"If she married him." The words startled her. "If she married him."...
+Well, what of it? She would go to live at the Strata, of course; and
+there would be Cyril and Bertram. It might be awkward, and yet--she did
+not believe Cyril was in love with anything but his music; and as to
+Bertram--it was the same with Bertram and his painting, and he would
+soon forget that he had ever fancied he loved her. After that he would
+be simply a congenial friend and companion--a good comrade. As Billy
+thought of it, indeed, one of the pleasantest features of this marriage
+with William would be the delightful comradeship of her "brother,"
+Bertram.
+
+Billy dwelt then at some length on William's love for her, his longing
+for her presence, and his dreary years of loneliness.... And he was so
+good to her, she recollected; he had always been good to her. He was
+older, to be sure--much older than she; but, after all, it would not be
+so difficult, so very difficult, to learn to love him. At all events,
+whatever happened, she would have the supreme satisfaction of knowing
+that at least she had brought into dear Uncle--that is, into William's
+life the great peace and joy that only she could give.
+
+It was almost dawn when Billy arrived at this not uncheerful state of
+prospective martyrdom. She turned over then with a sigh, and settled
+herself to sleep. She was relieved that she had decided the question.
+She was glad that she knew just what to say when William should speak.
+He was a dear, dear man, and she would not make it hard for him, she
+promised herself. She would be William's wife.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+WILLIAM MEETS WITH A SURPRISE
+
+
+In spite of his sister's confident assurance that the time was ripe for
+him to speak to Billy, William delayed some days before broaching the
+matter to her. His courage was not so good as it had been when he was
+talking with Kate. It seemed now, as it always had, a fearsome thing to
+try to hasten on this love affair between Billy and Bertram. He could
+not see, in spite of Kate's words, that Billy showed unmistakable
+evidence at all of being in love with his brother. The more he thought
+of it, in fact, the more he dreaded the carrying out of his promise to
+speak to his namesake.
+
+What should he say, he asked himself. How could he word it? He could not
+very well accost her with: "Oh, Billy, I wish you'd please hurry up and
+marry Bertram, because then you'd come and live with me." Neither could
+he plead Bertram's cause directly. Quite probably Bertram would prefer
+to plead his own. Then, too, if Billy really was not in love with
+Bertram--what then? Might not his own untimely haste in the matter
+forever put an end to the chance of her caring for him?
+
+It was, indeed, a delicate matter, and as William pondered it he wished
+himself well out of it, and that Kate had not spoken. But even as
+he formed the wish, William remembered with a thrill Kate's positive
+assertion that a word from him would do wonders, and that now was the
+time to utter it. He decided then that he would speak; that he must
+speak; but that at the same time he would proceed with a caution that
+would permit a hasty retreat if he saw that his words were not having
+the desired effect. He would begin with a frank confession of his
+grief at her leaving him, and of his longing for her return; then very
+gradually, if wisdom counseled it, he would go on to speak of Bertram's
+love for her, and of his own hope that she would make Bertram and all
+the Strata glad by loving him in return.
+
+Mrs. Hartwell had returned to her Western home before William found just
+the opportunity for his talk with Billy. True to his belief that only
+hushed voices and twilight were fitting for such a subject, he waited
+until he found the girl early one evening alone on her vine-shaded
+veranda. He noticed that as he seated himself at her side she flushed a
+little and half started to rise, with a nervous fluttering of her hands,
+and a murmured "I'll call Aunt Hannah." It was then that with sudden
+courage, he resolved to speak.
+
+"Billy, don't go," he said gently, with a touch of his hand on her arm.
+"There is something I want to say to you. I--I have wanted to say it for
+some time."
+
+"Why, of--of course," stammered the girl, falling back in her seat. And
+again William noticed that odd fluttering of the slim little hands.
+
+For a time no one spoke, then William began softly, his eyes on the
+distant sky-line still faintly aglow with the sunset's reflection.
+
+"Billy, I want to tell you a story. Long years ago there was a man who
+had a happy home with a young wife and a tiny baby boy in it. I could
+not begin to tell you all the plans that man made for that baby boy.
+Such a great and good and wonderful being that tiny baby was one day to
+become. But the baby--went away, after a time, and carried with him all
+the plans--and he never came back. Behind him he left empty hearts that
+ached, and great bare rooms that seemed always to be echoing sighs and
+sobs. And then, one day, such a few years after, the young wife went to
+find her baby, and left the man all alone with the heart that ached and
+the great bare rooms that echoed sighs and sobs.
+
+"Perhaps it was this--the bareness of the rooms--that made the man turn
+to his boyish passion for collecting things. He wanted to fill those
+rooms full, full!--so that the sighs and sobs could not be heard; and he
+wanted to fill his heart, too, with something that would still the ache.
+And he tried. Already he had his boyish treasures, and these he lined up
+in brave array, but his rooms still echoed, and his heart still ached;
+so he built more shelves and bought more cabinets, and set himself to
+filling them, hoping at the same time that he might fill all that dreary
+waste of hours outside of business--hours which once had been all too
+short to devote to the young wife and the baby boy.
+
+"One by one the years passed, and one by one the shelves and the
+cabinets were filled. The man fancied, sometimes, that he had succeeded;
+but in his heart of hearts he knew that the ache was merely dulled, and
+that darkness had only to come to set the rooms once more to echoing
+the sighs and sobs. And then--but perhaps you are tired of the story,
+Billy." William turned with questioning eyes.
+
+"No, oh, no," faltered Billy. "It is beautiful, but so--sad!"
+
+"But the saddest part is done--I hope," said William, softly. "Let me
+tell you. A wonderful thing happened then. Suddenly, right out of a dull
+gray sky of hopelessness, dropped a little brown-eyed girl and a little
+gray cat. All over the house they frolicked, filling every nook and
+cranny with laughter and light and happiness. And then, like magic, the
+man lost the ache in his heart, and the rooms lost their echoing sighs
+and sobs. The man knew, then, that never again could he hope to fill his
+heart and life with senseless things of clay and metal. He knew that the
+one thing he wanted always near him was the little brown-eyed girl; and
+he hoped that he could keep her. But just as he was beginning to bask
+in this new light--it went out. As suddenly as they had come, the little
+brown-eyed girl and the gray cat went away. Why, the man did not know.
+He knew only that the ache had come back, doubly intense, and that the
+rooms were more gloomy than ever. And now, Billy,"--William's voice
+shook a little--"it is for you to finish the story. It is for you to say
+whether that man's heart shall ache on and on down to a lonely old age,
+and whether those rooms shall always echo the sighs and sobs of the
+past."
+
+"And I will finish it," choked Billy, holding out both her hands. "It
+sha'n't ache--they sha'n't echo!"
+
+The man leaned forward eagerly, unbelievingly, and caught the hands in
+his own.
+
+"Billy, do you mean it? Then you will--come?"
+
+"Yes, yes! I didn't know--I didn't think. I never supposed it was like
+that! Of course I'll come!" And in a moment she was sobbing in his arms.
+
+"Billy!" breathed William rapturously, as he touched his lips to her
+forehead. "My own little Billy!"
+
+It was a few minutes later, when Billy was more calm, that William
+started to speak of Bertram. For a moment he had been tempted not to
+mention his brother, now that his own point had been won so surprisingly
+quick; but the new softness in Billy's face had encouraged him, and he
+did not like to let the occasion pass when a word from him might do so
+much for Bertram. His lips parted, but no words came--Billy herself had
+begun to speak.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know why I'm crying," she stammered, dabbing her eyes
+with her round moist ball of a handerchief. "I hope when I'm your wife
+I'll learn to be more self-controlled. But you know I am young, and
+you'll have to be patient."
+
+As once before at something Billy said, the world to William went
+suddenly mad. His head swam dizzily, and his throat tightened so that
+he could scarcely breathe. By sheer force of will he kept his arm about
+Billy's shoulder, and he prayed that she might not know how numb and
+cold it had grown. Even then he thought he could not have heard aright.
+
+"Er--you said--" he questioned faintly.
+
+"I say when I'm your wife I hope I'll learn to be more self-controlled,"
+laughed Billy, nervously. "You see I just thought I ought to remind you
+that I am young, and that you'll have to be patient."
+
+William stammered something--a hurried something; he wondered afterward
+what it was. That it must have been satisfactory to Billy was evident,
+for she began laughingly to talk again. What she said, William scarcely
+knew, though he was conscious of making an occasional vague reply. He
+was still floundering in a hopeless sea of confusion and dismay. His own
+desire was to get up and say good night at once. He wanted to be alone
+to think. He realized, however, with sickening force, that men do not
+propose and run away--if they are accepted. And he was accepted; he
+realized that, too, overwhelmingly. Then he tried to think how it had
+happened, what he had said; how she could so have misunderstood his
+meaning. This line of thought he abandoned quickly, however; it could do
+no good. But what could do good, he asked himself. What could he do?
+
+With blinding force came the answer: he could do nothing. Billy cared
+for him. Billy had said "yes." Billy expected to be his wife. As if he
+could say to her now: "I beg your pardon, but 'twas all a mistake. _I_
+did not ask you to marry me."
+
+Very valiantly then William summoned his wits and tried to act his part.
+He told himself, too, that it would not be a hard one; that he loved
+Billy dearly, and that he would try to make her happy. He winced a
+little at this thought, for he remembered suddenly how old he was--as if
+he, at his age, were a fit match for a girl of twenty-one!
+
+And then he looked at Billy. The girl was plainly nervous. There was a
+deep flush on her cheeks and a brilliant sparkle in her eyes. She
+was talking rapidly--almost incoherently at times--and her voice was
+tremulous. Frequent little embarrassed laughs punctuated her sentences,
+and her fingers toyed with everything that came within reach. Some time
+before she had sprung to her feet and had turned on the electric lights;
+and when she came back she had not taken her old position at William's
+side, but had seated herself in a chair near by. All of which, according
+to William's eyes, meant the maidenly shyness of a girl who has just
+said "yes" to the man she loves.
+
+William went home that night in a daze. To himself he said that he had
+gone out in search of a daughter, and had come back with a wife.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+"WILLIAM'S BROTHER"
+
+
+It was decided that for the present, the engagement should not be
+known outside the family. The wedding would not take place immediately,
+William said, and it was just as well to keep the matter to themselves
+until plans were a little more definite.
+
+The members of the family were told at once. Aunt Hannah said "Oh, my
+grief and conscience!" three times, and made matters scarcely better by
+adding apologetically: "Oh, of course it's all right, it's all right,
+only--" She did not finish her sentence, and William, who had told her
+the news, did not know whether he would have been more or less pleased
+if she had finished it.
+
+Cyril received the information moodily, and lapsed at once into a fit
+of abstraction from which he roused himself hardly enough to offer
+perfunctory congratulations and best wishes.
+
+Billy was a little puzzled at Cyril's behavior. She had been sure for
+some time that Cyril had ceased to care specially for her, even if
+he ever did fancy that he loved her. She had hoped to keep him for
+a friend, but of late she had been forced to question even his
+friendliness. He had, in fact, gone back almost to his old reserve and
+taciturn aloofness.
+
+From the West, in response to William's news of the engagement, came a
+cordially pleased note in Kate's scrawling handwriting. Kate, indeed,
+seemed to be the only member of the family who was genuinely delighted
+with the coming marriage. As to Bertram--Bertram appeared to have aged
+years in a single night, so drawn and white was his face the morning
+after William had told him his plans.
+
+William had dreaded most of all to tell Bertram. He was very sure that
+Bertram himself cared for Billy; and it was doubly hard because in
+William's own mind was a strong conviction that the younger man was
+decidedly the one for her. Realizing, however, that Bertram must be
+told, William chose a time for the telling when Bertram was smoking in
+his den in the twilight, with his face half hidden from sight.
+
+Bertram said little--very little, that night; but in the morning he went
+straight to Billy.
+
+Billy was shocked. She had never seen the smiling, self-reliant,
+debonair Bertram like this.
+
+"Billy, is this true?" he demanded. The dull misery in his voice told
+Billy that he knew the answer before he asked the question.
+
+"Yes, yes; but, Bertram, please--please don't take it like this!" she
+implored.
+
+"How would you have me take it?"
+
+"Why, just--just sensibly. You know I told you that--that the other
+never could be--never."
+
+"I know YOU said so; but I--believed otherwise."
+
+"But I told you--I did not love you--that way."
+
+Bertram winced. He rose to his feet abruptly.
+
+"I know you did, Billy. I'm a fool, of course, to think that I could
+ever--change it. I shouldn't have come here, either, this morning. But
+I--had to. Good-by!" His face, as he held out his hand, was tragic with
+renunciation.
+
+"Why, Bertram, you aren't going--now--like this!" cried the girl.
+"You've just come!"
+
+The man turned almost impatiently.
+
+"And do you think I can stay--like this? Billy, won't you say good-by?"
+he asked in a softer voice, again with outstretched hand.
+
+Billy shook her head. She ignored the hand, and resolutely backed away.
+
+"No, not like that. You are angry with me," she grieved. "Besides, you
+make it sound as if--if you were going away."
+
+"I am going away."
+
+"Bertram!" There was terror as well as dismay in Billy's voice.
+
+Again the man turned sharply.
+
+"Billy, why are you making this thing so hard for me?" he asked in
+despair. "Can't you see that I must go?"
+
+"Indeed, I can't. And you mustn't go, either. There isn't any reason
+why you should," urged Billy, talking very fast, and working her fingers
+nervously. "Things are just the same as they were before--for you. I'm
+just going to marry William, but I wasn't ever going to marry you, so
+that doesn't change things any for you. Don't you see? Why, Bertram, you
+mustn't go away! There won't be anybody left. Cyril's going next week,
+you know; and if you go there won't be anybody left but William and
+me. Bertram, you mustn't go; don't you see? I should feel lost
+without--you!" Billy was almost crying now.
+
+Bertram looked up quickly. An odd change had come to his face. For a
+moment he gazed silently into Billy's agitated countenance; then he
+asked in a low voice:
+
+"Billy, did you think that after you and William were married I should
+still continue to live at--the Strata?"
+
+"Why, of course you will!" cried the girl, indignantly. "Why, Bertram,
+you'll be my brother then--my real brother; and one of the very chiefest
+things I'm anticipating when I go there to live is the good times you
+and I will have together when I'm William's wife!"
+
+Bertram drew in his breath audibly, and caught his lower lip between
+his teeth. With an abrupt movement he turned his back and walked to
+the window. For a full minute he stayed there, watched by the amazed,
+displeased eyes of the girl. When he came back he sat down quietly in
+the chair facing Billy. His countenance was grave and his eyes were a
+little troubled; but the haggard look of misery was quite gone.
+
+"Billy," he began gently, "you must forgive my saying this, but--are you
+quite sure you--love William?"
+
+Billy flushed with anger.
+
+"You have no right to ask such a question. Of course I love William."
+
+"Of course you do--we all love William. William is, in fact, a most
+lovable man. But William's wife should, perhaps, love him a little
+differently from--all of us."
+
+"And she will, certainly," retorted the girl, with a quick lifting of
+her chin. "Bertram, I don't think you have any right to--to make such
+insinuations."
+
+"And I won't make them any more," replied Bertram, gravely. "I just
+wanted you to make sure that you--knew."
+
+"I shall make sure, and I shall know," said Billy, firmly--so firmly
+that it sounded almost as if she were trying to convince herself as well
+as others.
+
+There was a long pause, then the man asked diffidently:
+
+"And so you are very sure that--that you want me to--stay?"
+
+"Indeed I do! Besides,--don't you remember?--there are all my people to
+be entertained. They must be taken to places, and given motor rides
+and picnics. You told me last week that you'd love to help me; but, of
+course, if you don't want to--"
+
+"But I do want to," cried Bertram, heartily, a gleam of the old
+cheerfulness springing to his eyes. "I'm dying to!"
+
+The girl looked up with quick distrust. For a moment she eyed him
+with bent brows. To her mind he had gone back to his old airy, hopeful
+light-heartedness. He was once more "only Bertram." She hesitated, then
+said with stern decision:
+
+"Bertram, you know I want you, and you must know that I'm delighted to
+have you drop this silly notion of going away. But if this quick change
+means that you are staying with any idea that--that _I_ shall change,
+then--then you must go. But if you will stay as WILLIAM'S BROTHER
+then--I'll be more than glad to have you."
+
+"I'll stay--as William's brother," agreed Bertram; and Billy did not
+notice the quick indrawing of his breath nor the close shutting of his
+lips after the words were spoken.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+THE ENGAGEMENT OF TWO
+
+
+By the middle of July the routine of Billy's days was well established.
+Marie had been for a week a welcome addition to the family, and she
+was proving to be of invaluable aid in entertaining Billy's guests. The
+overworked widow and the little lodging-house keeper from the West End
+were enjoying Billy's hospitality now; and just to look at their beaming
+countenances was an inspiration, Billy said.
+
+Cyril had gone abroad. Aunt Hannah was spending a week at the North
+Shore with friends. Bertram, true to his promise, was playing the
+gallant to Billy's guests; and so assiduous was he in his attentions
+that Billy at last remonstrated with him.
+
+"But I didn't mean them to take ALL your time," she protested.
+
+"Don't they like it? Do they see too much of me?" he demanded.
+
+"No, no! They love it, of course. You must know that. Nobody else could
+give such beautiful times as you've given us. But it's yourself I'm
+thinking of. You're giving up all your time. Besides, I didn't mean to
+keep you here all summer, of course. You always go away some, you know,
+for a vacation."
+
+"But I'm having a vacation here, doing this," laughed Bertram. "I'm sure
+I'm getting sea air down to the beaches and mountain air out to the
+Blue Hills. And as for excitement--if you can find anything more wildly
+exciting than it was yesterday when Miss Marie and I took the widow
+and the spinster lady on the Roller-coaster--just show it to me; that's
+all!"
+
+Billy laughed.
+
+"They told me about it--Marie in particular. She said you were lovely to
+them, and let them do every single thing they wanted to; and that half
+an hour after they got there they were like two children let out of
+school. Dear me, I wish I'd gone. I never stay at home that I don't miss
+something," she finished regretfully.
+
+Bertram shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"If it's Roller-coasters and Chute-the-chutes that you want, I fancy
+you'll get enough before the week is out," he sighed laughingly. "They
+said they'd like to go there to-morrow, please, when I asked them what
+we should do next. What surprises me is that they like such things--such
+hair-raising things. When I first saw them, black-gowned and
+stiff-backed, sitting in your little room here, I thought I should never
+dare offer them anything more wildly exciting than a church service or
+a lecture on psychology, with perhaps a band concert hinted at, provided
+the band could be properly instructed beforehand as to tempo and
+selections. But now--really, Billy, why do you suppose they have taken
+such a fancy to these kiddish stunts--those two staid women?"
+
+Billy laughed, but her eyes softened.
+
+"I don't know unless it's because all their lives they've been tied
+to such dead monotony that just the exhilaration of motion is bliss to
+them. But you won't always have to risk your neck and your temper in
+this fashion, Bertram. Next week my little couple from South Boston
+comes. She adores pictures and stuffed animals. You'll have to do the
+museums with her. Then there's little crippled Tommy--he'll be perfectly
+contented if you'll put him down where he can hear the band play. And
+all you'll have to do when that one stops is to pilot him to the next
+one. This IS good of you, Bertram, and I do thank you for it," finished
+Billy, fervently, just as Marie, the widow, and the "spinster lady"
+entered the room.
+
+Billy told herself these days that she was very happy--very happy
+indeed. Was she not engaged to a good man, and did she not also have it
+in her power to make the long summer days a pleasure to many people?
+The fact that she had to tell herself that she was happy in order to
+convince herself that she was so, did not occur to Billy--yet.
+
+Not long after Marie arrived, Billy told her of the engagement. William
+was at the house very frequently, and owing to the intimacy of Marie's
+relationship with the family Billy decided to tell her how matters
+stood. Marie's reception of the news was somewhat surprising. First she
+looked frightened.
+
+"To William?--you are engaged to William?"
+
+"Why--yes."
+
+"But I thought--surely it was--don't you mean--Mr. Cyril?"
+
+"No, I don't," laughed Billy. "And certainly I ought to know."
+
+"And you don't--care for him?"
+
+"I hope not--if I'm going to marry William."
+
+So light was Billy's voice and manner that Marie dared one more
+question.
+
+"And he--doesn't care--for you?"
+
+"I hope not--if William is going to marry me," laughed Billy again.
+
+"Oh-h!" breathed Marie, with an odd intonation of relief. "Then I'm
+glad--so glad! And I hope you'll be very, very happy, dear."
+
+Billy looked into Marie's glowing face and was pleased: there seemed to
+be so few, so very few faces into which she had looked and found entire
+approbation of her engagement to William.
+
+Billy saw a great deal of William now. He was always kind and
+considerate, and he tried to help her entertain her guests; but Billy,
+grateful as she was to him for his efforts, was relieved when he
+resigned his place to Bertram. Bertram did, indeed, know so much better
+how to do it. William tried to help her, too, about training her vines
+and rosebushes; but of course, even in this, he could not be expected to
+show quite the interest that Bertram manifested in every green shoot and
+opening bud, for he had not helped her plant them, as Bertram had.
+
+Billy was a little troubled sometimes, that she did not feel more at
+ease with William. She thought it natural that she should feel a little
+diffident with him, in the face of his sudden change from an "uncle"
+to an accepted lover; but she did not see why she should be afraid of
+him--yet she was. She owned that to herself unhappily. And he was so
+good!--she owned that, too. He seemed not to have a thought in the world
+but for her comfort and happiness; and there was no end to the tactful
+little things he was always doing for her pleasure. He seemed, also, to
+have divined that she did not like to be kissed and caressed; and only
+occasionally did he kiss her, and then it was merely a sort of fatherly
+salute on her forehead--for which consideration Billy was grateful:
+Billy decided that she would not like to be kissed on the lips.
+
+After some days of puzzling over the matter Billy concluded that it was
+self-consciousness that caused all the trouble. With William she was
+self-conscious. If she could only forget that she was some day to be
+William's wife, the old delightful comradeship would return, and
+she would be at ease again with him. In time, after she had become
+accustomed to the idea of marriage, it would not so confuse her, of
+course. She loved him dearly, and she wanted to make him happy; but for
+the present--just while she was "getting used to things"--she would try
+to forget, sometimes, that she was going to be William's wife.
+
+Billy was happier now. She was always happier after she had thought
+things out to her own satisfaction. She turned with new zest to
+the entertainment of her guests; and with Bertram she planned many
+delightful trips for their pleasure. Bertram was a great comfort to her
+these days. Never, in word or look, could she see that he overstepped
+the role which he had promised to play--William's brother.
+
+Billy went back to her music, too. A new melody was running through her
+head, and she longed to put it on paper. Already her first little "Group
+of Songs" had found friends, and Billy, to a very modest extent, was
+beginning to taste the sweets of fame.
+
+Thus, by all these interests, did Billy try "to get used to things."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+A LITTLE PIECE OF PAPER
+
+
+Of all Billy's guests, Marie was very plainly the happiest. She was a
+permanent guest, it is true, while the others came for only a week or
+two at a time; but it was not this, Billy decided, that had brought so
+brilliant a sparkle to Marie's eyes, so joyous a laugh to her lips. The
+joyousness was all the more noticeable, because heretofore Marie, while
+very sweet, had been also sad. Her big blue eyes had always carried a
+haunting shadow, and her step had lacked the spring belonging to youth
+and happiness. Certainly, Billy had never seen her like this before.
+
+"Verily, Marie," she teased one day, "have you found an exhaustless
+supply of stockings to mend, or a never-done pudding to make--which?"
+
+"Why? What do you mean?"
+
+"Oh, nothing. I was only wondering just what had brought that new light
+to your eyes."
+
+"Is there a new light?"
+
+"There certainly is."
+
+"It must be because I'm so happy, then," sighed Marie; "because you're
+so good to me."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Isn't that enough?" Marie's tone was evasive.
+
+"No." Billy shook her head mischievously. "Marie, what is it?"
+
+"It's nothing--really, it's nothing," protested Marie, hurrying out of
+the room with a nervous laugh.
+
+Billy frowned. She was suspicious before; she was sure now. In less than
+twelve hours' time came her opportunity. She was alone again with Marie.
+
+"Marie, who is he?" she asked abruptly.
+
+"He? Who?"
+
+"The man who is to wear the stockings and eat the pudding."
+
+The little music teacher flushed very red, but she managed to display
+something that might pass for surprise.
+
+"BILLY!"
+
+"Come, dear," coaxed Billy, winningly. "Tell me about it. I'm so
+interested!"
+
+"But there isn't anything to tell--really there isn't."
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+"He isn't anybody--that is, he doesn't know he's anybody," amended
+Marie.
+
+Billy laughed softly.
+
+"Oh, doesn't he! Hasn't he ever shown--that he cared?"
+
+"No; that is--perhaps he has, only I thought then--that it was--another
+girl."
+
+"Another girl! So there's another girl in the case?"
+
+"Yes. I mean, no," corrected Marie, suddenly beginning to realize what
+she was saying. "Really, it wasn't anything--it isn't anything!" she
+protested.
+
+"Hm-m," murmured Billy, archly. "Oh, I'm getting on some! He did show,
+once, that he cared; but you thought it was another girl, and you
+coldly looked the other way. Now, there ISN'T any other girl, you find,
+and--Marie, tell me the rest!"
+
+Marie shook her head emphatically, and pulled herself gently away from
+Billy's grasp.
+
+"No, no, please!" she begged. "It really isn't anything. I'm sure I'm
+imagining it all!" she cried, as she ran away.
+
+During the days that followed, Billy speculated not a little on Marie's
+half-told story, and wondered interestedly who the man might be. She
+questioned Marie once again, but the girl would tell nothing more; and,
+indeed, Billy was so occupied with her own perplexities that she had
+little time for those of other people.
+
+To herself Billy was forced to own that she was not "getting used to
+things." She was still self-conscious with William; she could not forget
+that she was one day to be his wife. She could not bring back the dear
+old freedom of comradeship with him.
+
+Billy was alarmed now. She had begun to ask herself searching questions.
+What should she do if never, never should she get used to the idea
+of marrying William? How could she marry him if he was still "Uncle
+William," and never her dear lover in her eyes? Why had she not been
+wise enough and brave enough to tell him in the first place that she
+was not at all sure that she loved him, but that she would try to do so?
+Then when she had tried--as she had now--and failed, she could have told
+him honestly the truth, and it would not have been so great a shock to
+him as it must be now, if she should tell him.
+
+Billy had remorsefully come to the conclusion that she could never love
+any man well enough to marry him, when one day so small a thing as a
+piece of paper fluttered into her vision, and showed her the fallacy of
+that idea.
+
+It was a half-sheet of note paper, and it blew from Marie's balcony to
+the lawn below. Billy found it there later, and as she picked it up her
+eyes fell on a single name in Marie's handwriting inscribed half a dozen
+times as if the writer had musingly accompanied her thoughts with her
+pen; and the name was, "Marie Henshaw."
+
+For a moment Billy stared at the name perplexedly--then in a flash came
+the remembrance of Marie's words; and Billy breathed: "Henshaw!--the
+man--BERTRAM!"
+
+Billy dropped the paper then and fled. In her own room, behind locked
+doors, she sat down to think.
+
+Bertram! It was he for whom Marie cared--HER Bertram! And then it came
+to Billy with staggering force that he was not HER Bertram at all. He
+never could be her Bertram now. He was--Marie's.
+
+Billy was frightened then, so fierce was this strange new something that
+rose within her--this overpowering something that seemed to blot out all
+the world, and leave only--Bertram. She knew then, that it had always
+been Bertram to whom she had turned, though she had been blind to the
+cause of that turning. Always her plans had included him. Always she had
+been the happiest in his presence; never had she pictured him anywhere
+else but at her side. Certainly never had she pictured him as the
+devoted lover of another woman!... And she had not known what it all
+meant--poor blind child that she was!
+
+Very resolutely now Billy set herself to looking matters squarely in
+the face. She understood it quite well. All summer Marie and Bertram had
+been thrown together. No wonder Marie had fallen in love with Bertram,
+and that he--Billy thought she comprehended now why Bertram had found it
+so easy for the last few weeks to be William's brother. She, of course,
+had been the "other girl" whom Marie had once feared that the man loved.
+It was all so clear--so woefully clear!
+
+With an aching heart Billy asked herself what now was to be done.
+For herself, turn whichever way she could, she could see nothing but
+unhappiness. She determined, therefore, with Spartan fortitude, that
+to no one else would she bring equal unhappiness. She would be silent.
+Bertram and Marie loved each other. That matter was settled. As to
+William--Billy thought of the story William had told her of his lonely
+life,--of the plea he had made to her; and her heart ached. Whatever
+happened, William must be made happy. William must not be told. Her
+promise to William must be kept.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+WILLIAM PAYS A VISIT
+
+
+Before September passed all Billy's friends said that her summer's
+self-appointed task had been too hard for her. In no other way could
+they account for the sad change that had come to her.
+
+Undeniably Billy looked really ill. Always slender, she was shadow-like
+now. Her eyes had found again the wistful appeal of her girlhood, only
+now they carried something that was almost fear, as well. The rose-flush
+had gone from her cheeks, and pathetic little hollows had appeared,
+making the round young chin below look almost pointed. Certainly Billy
+did seem to be ill.
+
+Late in September William went West on business. Incidentally he called
+to see his sister, Kate.
+
+"Well, and how is everybody?" asked Kate, cheerily, after the greetings
+were over.
+
+William sighed.
+
+"Well, 'everybody,' to me, Kate, is pretty badly off. We're worried
+about Billy."
+
+"Billy! You don't mean she's sick? Why, she's always been the picture of
+health!"
+
+"I know she has; but she isn't now."
+
+"What's the trouble?"
+
+"That's what we don't know."
+
+"You've had the doctor?"
+
+"Of course; two or three of them--though much against Billy's will.
+But--they didn't help us."
+
+"What did they say?"
+
+"They could find nothing except perhaps a little temporary stomach
+trouble, or something of that kind, which they all agreed was no just
+cause for her present condition."
+
+"But what did they say it was?"
+
+"Why, they said it seemed like nervousness, or as if something was
+troubling her. They asked if she weren't under some sort of strain."
+
+"Well, is she? Does anything trouble her?"
+
+"Not that I know of. Anyhow, if there is anything, none of us can find
+out what it is."
+
+Kate frowned. She threw a quick look into her brother's face.
+
+"William," she began hesitatingly, "forgive me, but--Billy is quite
+happy in--her engagement, I suppose."
+
+The man flushed painfully, and sighed.
+
+"I've thought of that, of course. In fact, it was the first thing I
+did think of. I even began to watch her rather closely, and once
+I--questioned her a little."
+
+"What did she say?"
+
+"She seemed so frightened and distressed that I didn't say much myself.
+I couldn't. I had but just begun when her eyes filled with tears, and
+she asked me in a frightened little voice if she had done anything to
+displease me, anything to make me unhappy; and she seemed so anxious
+and grieved and dismayed that I should even question her, that I had to
+stop."
+
+"What has she done this summer? Where has she been?"
+
+"She hasn't been anywhere. Didn't I write you? She's kept open house for
+a lot of her less fortunate friends--a sort of vacation home, you know;
+and--and I must say she's given them a world of happiness, too."
+
+"But wasn't that hard for her?"
+
+"It didn't seem to be. She appeared to enjoy it immensely, particularly
+at first. Of course she had plenty of help, and that wonderful little
+Miss Hawthorn has been a host in herself. They're all gone now, anyway,
+except Miss Hawthorn."
+
+"But Billy must have had the care and the excitement."
+
+"Perhaps--to a certain extent. Though not much, after all. You see
+Bertram, too, has given up his summer to them, and has been playing the
+devoted escort to the whole bunch. Indeed, for the last few weeks of it,
+since Billy began to seem so ill, he and Miss Hawthorn have schemed
+to take all the care from Billy, and they have done the whole thing
+together."
+
+"But what HAS Billy done to make her like this?"
+
+"I don't know. She's done lots for me, in all sorts of ways--cataloguing
+my curios, you know, and going with me to hunt up things. In fact, she
+seems the happiest when she IS doing something for me. It's come to be
+a sort of mania with her, I'm afraid--to do something for me. Kate, I'm
+really worried. What do you suppose is the matter?"
+
+Kate shook her head. The puzzled frown had come back to her face.
+
+"I can't imagine," she began slowly. "Of course, when I told her you
+loved her and--"
+
+"When you told her wha-at?" exploded the usually low-voiced William,
+with sudden sharpness.
+
+"When I told her that you loved her, William. You see, I--"
+
+William sprang to his feet.
+
+"Told her that I loved her!" he cried, aghast. "Good heavens, Kate, do
+you mean to say that YOU told her THAT."
+
+"Why, y-yes."
+
+"And may I ask where you got your information?"
+
+"Why, William Henshaw, what a question! I got it from yourself, of
+course," defended Kate.
+
+"From ME!" William's face expressed sheer amazement.
+
+"Certainly; on that drive when I was East in June," returned Kate, with
+dignity. "YOU evidently have forgotten it, but I have not. You told me
+very frankly how much you thought of her, and how you longed to have her
+back there with you, but that she didn't seem to be ready to come. I was
+sorry for you, and I wanted to do something to help, particularly as
+it might have been my fault, partly, that she went away, in the first
+place."
+
+William lifted his head.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, nothing, only that I--I told her a little of how--how upsetting
+her arrival had been to everything, and of how much you had done for
+her, and put yourself out. I said it so she'd appreciate things, of
+course, but she took it quite differently from what I had intended she
+should take it, and seemed quite cut up about it. Then she went away in
+that wily, impulsive fashion."
+
+William bit his lip, but he did not speak. Kate was plunging on
+feverishly, and in the face of the greater revelation he let the lesser
+one drop.
+
+"And so that's why I was particularly anxious to bring things around
+right again," continued Kate. "And that's why I spoke. I thought I'd
+seen how things were, and on the drive I said so. Then is when I advised
+you to speak to Billy; but you declared that Billy wasn't ready, and
+that you couldn't make a girl marry against her will. NOW don't you
+recollect it?"
+
+A great light of understanding broke over William's face. He started
+to speak, but something evidently stayed the words on his lips. With
+controlled deliberation he turned and sat down. Then he said:
+
+"Kate, will you kindly tell me just what you DID do?"
+
+"Why, I didn't do so very much. I just tried to help, that's all. After
+I talked with you, and advised you to ask Billy right away to marry you,
+I went to her. I thought she cared for you already, anyway; but I just
+wanted to tell her how very much it was to you, and so sort of pave the
+way. And now comes the part that I started to tell you a little while
+ago when you caught me up so sharply. I was going to say that when I
+told Billy this, she appeared to be surprised, and almost frightened.
+You see, she hadn't known you cared for her, after all, and so I had a
+chance to help and make it plain to her how you did love her, so that
+when you spoke everything would be all right. There, that's all. You see
+I didn't do so very much."
+
+"'So very much'!" groaned William, starting to his feet. "Great Scott!"
+
+"Why, William, what do you mean? Where are you going?"
+
+"I'm going--to--Billy," retorted William with slow distinctness.
+"And I'm going to try to get there--before--you--CAN!" And with this
+extraordinary shot--for William--he left the house.
+
+William went to Billy as fast as steam could carry him. He found her in
+her little drawing-room listlessly watching with Aunt Hannah the game of
+chess that Bertram and Marie were playing.
+
+"Billy, you poor, dear child, come here," he said abruptly, as soon as
+the excitement of his unexpected arrival had passed. "I want to talk to
+you." And he led the way to the veranda which he knew would be silent
+and deserted.
+
+"To talk to--me?" murmured Billy, as she wonderingly came to his side, a
+startled questioning in her wide dark eyes.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+THE CROOKED MADE STRAIGHT
+
+
+William did not re-enter the house after his talk with Billy on the
+veranda.
+
+"I will go down the steps and around by the rose garden to the street,
+dear," he said. "I'd rather not go in now. Just make my adieus, please,
+and say that I couldn't stay any longer. And now--good-by." His eyes as
+they looked down at her, were moist and very tender. His lips trembled a
+little, but they smiled, and there was a look of new-born peace and joy
+on his face.
+
+Billy, too, was smiling, though wistfully. The frightened questioning
+had gone from her eyes, leaving only infinite tenderness.
+
+"You are sure it--it is all right--now?" she stammered.
+
+"Very sure, little girl; and it's the first time it has been right for
+weeks. Billy, that was very dear of you, and I love you for it; but
+think how near--how perilously near you came to lifelong misery!"
+
+"But I thought--you wanted me--so much," she smiled shyly.
+
+"And I did, and I do--for a daughter. You don't doubt that NOW?"
+
+"No, oh, no," laughed Billy, softly; and to her face came a happy look
+of relief as she finished: "And I'll be so glad to be--the daughter!"
+
+For some minutes after the man had gone, Billy stood by the steps where
+he had left her. She was still there when Bertram came to the veranda
+door and spoke to her.
+
+"Billy, I saw William go by the window, so I knew you were alone. May I
+speak to you?"
+
+The girl turned with a start.
+
+"Why, of course! What is it?--but I thought you were playing. Where is
+Marie?"
+
+"The game is finished; besides--Billy, why are you always asking
+me lately where Marie is, as if I were her keeper, or she mine?" he
+demanded, with a touch of nervous irritation.
+
+"Why, nothing, Bertram," smiled Billy, a little wearily; "only that you
+were playing together a few minutes ago, and I wondered where she had
+gone."
+
+"'A few minutes ago'!" echoed Bertram with sudden bitterness. "Evidently
+the time passed swiftly with you, Billy. William was out here MORE than
+an hour."
+
+"Why--Bertram!"
+
+"Yes, I know. I've no business to say that, of course," sighed the man;
+"but, Billy, that's why I came out--because I must speak to you this
+once. Won't you come and sit down, please?" he implored despairingly.
+
+"Why, Bertram," murmured Billy again, faintly, as she turned toward the
+vine-shaded corner and sat down. Her eyes were startled. A swift color
+had come to her cheeks.
+
+"Billy," began the man, in a sternly controlled voice, "please let me
+speak this once, and don't try to stop me. You may think, for a moment,
+that it's disloyal to William if you listen; but it isn't. There's this
+much due to me--that you let me speak now. Billy, I can't stand it.
+I've tried, but it's no use. I've got to go away, and it's right that I
+should. I'm not the only one that thinks so, either. Marie does, too."
+
+"MARIE!"
+
+"Yes. I talked it all over with her. She's known for a long time how
+it's been with me; how I cared--for you."
+
+"Marie! You've told Marie that?" gasped Billy.
+
+"Yes. Surely you don't mind Marie's knowing," went on Bertram,
+dejectedly. "And she's been so good to me, and tried to--help me."
+
+Bertram was not looking at Billy now. If he had been he would have seen
+the incredulous joy come into her face. His eyes were moodily fixed on
+the floor.
+
+"And so, Billy, I've come to tell you. I'm going away," he continued,
+after a moment. "I've got to go. I thought once, when I first talked
+with you of William, that you didn't know your own heart; that you
+didn't really care for him. I was even fool enough to think that--that
+it would be I to whom you'd turn--some day. And so I stayed. But I
+stayed honorably, Billy! YOU know that! You know that I haven't once
+forgotten--not once, that I was only William's brother. I promised you
+I'd be that--and I have been; haven't I?"
+
+Billy nodded silently. Her face was turned away.
+
+"But, Billy, I can't do it any longer. I've got to ask for my promise
+back, and then, of course, I can't stay."
+
+"But you--you don't have to go--away," murmured the girl, faintly.
+
+Bertram sprang to his feet. His face was white.
+
+"Billy," he cried, standing tall and straight before her, "Billy, I
+love every touch of your hand, every glance of your eye, every word that
+falls from your lips. Do you think I can stay--now? I want my promise
+back! When I'm no longer William's brother--then I'll go!"
+
+"But you don't have to have it back--that is, you don't have to have it
+at all," stammered Billy, flushing adorably. She, too, was on her feet
+now.
+
+"Billy, what do you mean?"
+
+"Don't you see? I--I HAVE turned," she faltered breathlessly, holding
+out both her hands.
+
+Even then, in spite of the great light that leaped to his eyes, Bertram
+advanced only a single step.
+
+"But--William?" he questioned, unbelievingly.
+
+"It WAS a mistake, just as you thought. We know now--both of us. We
+don't either of us care for the other--that way. And--Bertram, I think
+it HAS been you--all the time, only I didn't know!"
+
+"Billy, Billy!" choked Bertram in a voice shaken with emotion. He opened
+his arms then, wide--and Billy walked straight into them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+THE "END OF THE STORY"
+
+
+It was two days after Billy's new happiness had come to her that Cyril
+came home. He went very soon to see Billy.
+
+The girl was surprised at the change in his appearance. He had grown
+thin and haggard looking, and his eyes were somber. He moved restlessly
+about the room for a time, finally seating himself at the piano and
+letting his fingers slip from one mournful little melody to another.
+Then, with a discordant crash, he turned.
+
+"Billy, do you think any girl would marry--me?" he demanded.
+
+"Why, Cyril!"
+
+"There, now, please don't begin that," he begged fretfully. "I realize,
+of course, that I'm a very unlikely subject for matrimony. You made me
+understand that clearly enough last winter!"
+
+"Last--winter?"
+
+Cyril raised his eyebrows.
+
+"Oh, I came to you for a little encouragement, and to make a
+confession," he said. "I made the confession--but I didn't get the
+encouragement."
+
+Billy changed color. She thought she knew what he meant, but at the
+same time she couldn't understand why he should wish to refer to that
+conversation now.
+
+"A--confession?" she repeated, hesitatingly.
+
+"Yes. I told you that I'd begun to doubt my being such a woman-hater,
+after all. I intimated that YOU'D begun the softening process, and that
+then I'd found a certain other young woman who had--well, who had kept
+up the good work."
+
+"Oh!" cried Billy suddenly, with a peculiar intonation. "Oh-h!" Then she
+laughed softly.
+
+"Well, that was the confession," resumed Cyril. "Then I came out
+flat-footed and said that I wanted to marry her--but there is where I
+didn't get the encouragement!"
+
+"Indeed! I'm afraid I wasn't very considerate," stammered Billy.
+
+"No, you weren't," agreed Cyril, moodily. "I didn't know but now--" his
+voice softened a little--"with this new happiness of yours and Bertram's
+that--you might find a little encouragement for me."
+
+"And I will," cried Billy, promptly. "Tell me about her."
+
+"I did--last winter," reproached the man, "and you were sure I was
+deceiving myself. You drew the gloomiest sort of picture of the misery I
+would take with a wife."
+
+"I did?" Billy was laughing very merrily now.
+
+"Yes. You said she'd always be talking and laughing when I wanted to be
+quiet, and that she'd want to drag me out to parties and plays when
+I wanted to stay at home; and--oh, lots of things. I tried to make
+it clear to you that--that this little woman wasn't that sort. But I
+couldn't," finished Cyril, gloomily.
+
+"But of course she isn't," declared Billy, with quick sympathy. "I--I
+didn't know--WHAT--I was--talking about," she added with emphatic
+distinctness. Then she smiled to think how little Cyril knew how very
+true those words were. "Tell me about her," she begged again. "I
+know she must be very lovely and brilliant, and of course a wonderful
+musician. YOU couldn't choose any one else!"
+
+To her surprise Cyril turned abruptly and began to play again. A nervous
+little staccato scherzo fell from his fingers, but it dropped almost at
+once into a quieter melody, and ended with something that sounded very
+much like the last strain of "Home, Sweet Home." Then he wheeled about
+on the piano stool.
+
+"Billy, that's exactly where you're wrong--I DON'T want that kind of
+wife. I don't want a brilliant one, and--now, Billy, this sounds like
+horrible heresy, I know, but it's true--I don't care whether she can
+play, or not; but I should prefer that she shouldn't play--much!"
+
+"Why, Cyril Henshaw!--and you, with your music! As if you could be
+contented with a woman like that!"
+
+"Oh, I want her to like music, of course," modified Cyril; "but I don't
+care to have her MAKE it. Billy, do you know? You'll laugh, of course,
+but my picture of a wife is always one thing: a room with a table and
+a shaded lamp, and a little woman beside it with the light on her hair,
+and a great, basket of sewing beside her. You see I AM domestic!" he
+finished a little defiantly.
+
+"I should say you were," laughed Billy. "And have you found her?--this
+little woman who is to do nothing but sit and sew in the circle of the
+shaded lamp?"
+
+"Yes, I've found her, but I'm not at all sure she's found me. That's
+where I want your help. Oh, I don't mean, of course," he added, "that
+she's got to sit under that lamp all the time. It's only that--that I
+hope she likes that sort of thing."
+
+"And--does she?"
+
+"Yes; that is, I think she does," smiled Cyril. "Anyhow, she told me
+once that--that the things she liked best to do in all the world were to
+mend stockings and to make puddings."
+
+Billy sprang to her feet with a little cry. Now, indeed, had Cyril kept
+his promise and made "many things clear" to her.
+
+"Cyril, come here," she cried tremulously, leading the way to the open
+veranda door. The next moment Cyril was looking across the lawn to the
+little summerhouse in the midst of Billy's rose garden. In full view
+within the summerhouse sat Marie--sewing.
+
+"Go, Cyril; she's waiting for you," smiled Billy, mistily. "The light's
+only the sun, to be sure, and maybe there isn't a whole basket of sewing
+there. But--SHE'S there!"
+
+"You've--guessed, then!" breathed Cyril.
+
+"I've not guessed--I know. And--it's all right."
+
+"You mean--?" Only Cyril's pleading eyes finished the question.
+
+"Yes, I'm sure she does," nodded Billy. And then she added under her
+breath as the man passed swiftly down the steps: "'Marie Henshaw'
+indeed! So 'twas Cyril all the time--and never Bertram--who was the
+inspiration of that bit of paper give-away!"
+
+When she turned back into the room she came face to face with Bertram.
+
+"I spoke, dear, but you didn't hear," he said, as he hurried forward
+with outstretched hands.
+
+"Bertram," greeted Billy, with surprising irrelevance, "'and they all
+lived happily ever after'--they DID! Isn't that always the ending to the
+story--a love story?"
+
+"Of course," said Bertram with emphasis;--"OUR love story!"
+
+"And theirs," supplemented Billy, softly; but Bertram did not hear that.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Miss Billy, by Eleanor H. Porter
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