gerly.

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