and doilies and lace rufflings
we'll do it afterwards,--not before."

"But--"

"Besides, I _need_ you to take care of me," cut in Bertram, craftily.

"Bertram, do you--really?"

The tender glow on Billy's face told its own story, and Bertram's eager
eyes were not slow to read it.

"Sweetheart, see here, dear," he cried softly, tightening his good left
arm. And forthwith he began to tell her how much he did, indeed, need
her.

"Billy, my dear!" It was Aunt Hannah's plaintive voice at the doorway,
a little later. "We must go home; and William is here, too, and wants to
see you."

Billy rose at once as Aunt Hannah entered the room.

"Yes, Aunt Hannah, I'll come; besides"--she glanced at Bertram
mischievously--"I shall need all the time I've got to prepare for--my
wedding."

"Your wedding! You mean it'll be before--October?" Aunt Hannah glanced
from one to the other uncertainly. Something in their smiling faces sent
a quick suspicion to her eyes.

"Yes," nodded Billy, demurely. "It's next Tuesday, you see."

"Next Tuesday! But that's only a week away," gasped Aunt Hannah.

"Yes, a week."

"But, child, your trousseau--the wedding--the--the--a week!" Aunt Hannah
could not articulate further.

"Yes, I know; that is a good while," cut in Bertram, airily. "We wanted
it to-morrow, but we had to wait, on account of the new license law.
Otherwise it wouldn't have been so long, and--"

But Aunt Hannah was gone. With a low-breathed "Long! Oh, my grief and
conscience--_William!_" she had fled through the hall door.

"Well, it _is_ long," maintained Bertram, with tender eyes, as he
reached out his hand to say good-night.

End of Project Gutenberg's Miss Billy's Decision, by Eleanor H. Porter

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