his 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