gether-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