nger--the last
because she did not like the way Pete had said Miss Billy's name. It was
one matter for her to object to this thing Billy was doing--but quite
another for Pete to do it.

"Of course it's she!" retorted Aunt Hannah, testily. "As if you yourself
didn't bring her here with your crazy messages at this time of night!"

"Pete, where is he?" interposed Billy. "Tell Mr. Bertram I am here--or,
wait! I'll go right in and surprise him."

"_Billy!_" This time it was Aunt Hannah who gasped her name.

Pete had recovered himself by now, but he did not even glance toward
Aunt Hannah. His face was beaming, and his old eyes were shining.

"Miss Billy, Miss Billy, you're an angel straight from heaven, you
are--you are! Oh, I'm so glad you came! It'll be all right now--all
right! He's in the den, Miss Billy."

Billy turned eagerly, but before she could take so much as one step
toward the door at the end of the hall, Aunt Hannah's indignant voice
arrested her.

"Billy-stop! You're not an angel; you're a young woman--and a crazy
one, at that! Whatever angels do, young women don't go unannounced and
unchaperoned into young men's rooms! Pete, go tell your master that _we_
are here, and ask if he will receive _us_."

Pete's lips twitched. The emphatic "we" and "us" were not lost on him.
But his face was preternaturally grave when he spoke.

"Mr. Bertram is up and dressed, ma'am. He's in the den. I'll speak to
him."

Pete, once again the punctilious butler, stalked to the door of
Bertram's den and threw it wide open.

Opposite the door, on a low couch, lay Bertram, his head bandaged, and
his right arm in a sling. His face was turned toward the door, but his
eyes were closed. He looked very white, and his features were pitifully
drawn with suffering.

"Mr. Bertram," began Pete--but he got no further. A flying figure
brushed by him and fell on its knees by the couch, with a low cry.

Bertram's eyes flew open. Across his face swept such a radiant look of
unearthly joy that Pete sobbed audibly and fled to the kitchen. Dong
Ling found him there a minute later polishing a silver teaspoon with
a fringed napkin that had been spread over Bertram's tray. In the hall
above Aunt Hannah was crying into William's gray linen duster that hung
on the hall-rack--Aunt Hannah's handkerchief was on the floor back at
Hillside.

In the den neither Billy nor Bertram knew or cared what had become of
Aunt Hannah and Pete. There were just