eal festive-looking wedding party, you must
admit," laughed Cyril; "what with the bridegroom's own arm in a sling,
too! But who were they all, anyway?"

"Why, you knew Mrs. Greggory and Alice, of course--and Pete," smiled
Marie. "And wasn't Pete happy? Billy says she'd have had Pete if she had
no one else; that there wouldn't have been any wedding, anyway, if it
hadn't been for his telephoning Aunt Hannah that night."

"Yes; Will told me."

"As for Tommy and the others--most of them were those people that Billy
had at her home last summer for a two weeks' vacation--people, you
know, too poor to give themselves one, and too proud to accept one from
ordinary charity. Billy's been following them up and doing little things
for them ever since--sugarplums and frosting on their cake, she calls
it; and they adore her, of course. I think it was lovely of her to have
them, and they did have such a good time! You should have seen Tommy
when you played that wedding march for Billy to enter the room. His poor
little face was so transfigured with joy that I almost cried, just to
look at him. Billy says he loves music--poor little fellow!"

"Well, I hope they'll be happy, in spite of Kate's doleful prophecies.
Certainly they looked happy enough to-day," declared Cyril, patting a
yawn as he rose to his feet. "I fancy Will and Aunt Hannah are lonesome,
though, about now," he added.

"Yes," smiled Marie, mistily, as she gathered up her work. "I know what
Aunt Hannah's doing. She's helping Rosa put the house to rights, and
she's stopping to cry over every slipper and handkerchief of Billy's she
finds. And she'll do that until that funny clock of hers strikes twelve,
then she'll say 'Oh, my grief and conscience--midnight!' But the next
minute she'll remember that it's only half-past eleven, after all, and
she'll send Rosa to bed and sit patting Billy's slipper in her lap till
it really is midnight by all the other clocks."

Cyril laughed appreciatively.

"Well, I know what Will is doing," he declared.

"Will is in Bertram's den dozing before the fireplace with Spunkie
curled up in his lap."

As it happened, both these surmises were not far from right. In the
Strata, the Henshaws' old Beacon Street home, William was sitting before
the fireplace with the cat in his lap, but he was not dozing. He was
talking.

"Spunkie," he was saying, "your master, Bertram, got married to-day--and
to Miss Billy. He'll be bringing her home one of