I should so much as move a plate one inch in the china
closet, Marie would know it--and change it when she got home," laughed
Billy, as she rose from the table. "No, I can't go to work over there."

"But there's your music, my dear. You said you were going to write some
new songs after the wedding."

"I was," sighed Billy, walking to the window, and looking listlessly
at the bare, brown world outside; "but I can't write songs--when there
aren't any songs in my head to write."

"No, of course not; but they'll come, dear, in time. You're tired, now,"
soothed Aunt Hannah, as she turned to leave the room.

"It's the reaction, of course," murmured Aunt Hannah to herself, on the
way up-stairs. "She's had the whole thing on her hands--dear child!"

A few minutes later, from the living-room, came a plaintive little minor
melody. Billy was at the piano.

Kate and little Kate had, the night before, gone home with William.
It had been a sudden decision, brought about by the realization that
Bertram's trip to New York would leave William alone. Her trunk was to
be carried there to-day, and she would leave for home from there, at the
end of a two or three days' visit.

It began to snow at twelve o'clock. All the morning the sky had been
gray and threatening; and the threats took visible shape at noon in
myriads of white snow feathers that filled the air to the blinding
point, and turned the brown, bare world into a thing of fairylike
beauty. Billy, however, with a rare frown upon her face, looked out upon
it with disapproving eyes.

"I _was_ going in town--and I believe I'll go now," she cried.

"Don't, dear, please don't," begged Aunt Hannah. "See, the flakes are
smaller now, and the wind is coming up. We're in for a blizzard--I'm
sure we are. And you know you have some cold, already."

"All right," sighed Billy. "Then it's me for the knitting work and the
fire, I suppose," she finished, with a whimsicality that did not hide
the wistful disappointment of her voice.

She was not knitting, however, she was sewing with Aunt Hannah when at
four o'clock Rosa brought in the card.

Billy glanced at the name, then sprang to her feet with a glad little
cry.

"It's Mary Jane!" she exclaimed, as Rosa disappeared. "Now wasn't he a
dear to think to come to-day? You'll be down, won't you?"

Aunt Hannah smiled even while she frowned.

"Oh, Billy!" she remonstrated. "Yes, I'll come down, of course, a little
later, and I'm glad _