"Indeed! Well, that's a pity, I'm sure," rejoined Bertram, icily.

Billy turned in slight surprise.

"Why, Bertram, don't you like Mary Jane?"

"Billy, for heaven's sake! _Hasn't_ he got any name but that?"

Billy clapped her hands together suddenly.

"There, that makes me think. He told Aunt Hannah and me to guess what his name was, and we never hit it once. What do you think it is? The initials are M. J."

"I couldn't say, I'm sure. What is it?"

"Oh, he didn't tell us. You see he left us to guess it."

"Did he?"

"Yes," mused Billy, abstractedly, her eyes on the dancing fire. The next minute she stirred and settled herself more comfortably in the curve of her lover's arm. "But there! who cares what his name is? I'm sure I don't."

"Nor I," echoed Bertram in a voice that he tried to make not too fervent. He had not forgotten Billy's surprised: "Why, Bertram, don't you like Mary Jane?" and he did not like to call forth a repet.i.tion of it. Abruptly, therefore, he changed the subject. "By the way, what did you do to Pete to-day?" he asked laughingly. "He came home in a seventh heaven of happiness babbling of what an angel straight from the sky Miss Billy was. Naturally I agreed with him on that point. But what did you do to him?"

Billy smiled.

"Nothing--only engaged him for our butler--for life."

"Oh, I see. That was dear of you, Billy."

"As if I'd do anything else! And now for Dong Ling, I suppose, some day."

Bertram chuckled.

"Well, maybe I can help you there," he hinted. "You see, his Celestial Majesty came to me himself the other day, and said, after sundry and various preliminaries, that he should be 'velly much glad' when the 'Little Missee' came to live with me, for then he could go back to China with a heart at rest, as he had money 'velly much plenty' and didn't wish to be 'Melican man' any longer."

"Dear me," smiled Billy, "what a happy state of affairs--for him. But for you--do you realize, young man, what that means for you? A new wife and a new cook all at once? And you know I'm not Marie!"

"Ho! I'm not worrying," retorted Bertram with a contented smile; "besides, as perhaps you noticed, it wasn't Marie that I asked--to marry me!"

CHAPTER XI. A CLOCK AND AUNT HANNAH

Mrs. Kate Hartwell, the Henshaw brothers' sister from the West, was expected on the tenth. Her husband could not come, she had written, but she would bring with her, little Kate, the youngest child. The boys, Paul and Egbert, would stay with their father.

Billy received the news of little Kate's coming with outspoken delight.

"The very thing!" she cried. "We'll have her for a flower girl. She was a dear little creature, as I remember her."

Aunt Hannah gave a sudden low laugh.

"Yes, I remember," she observed. "Kate told me, after you spent the first day with her, that you graciously informed her that little Kate was almost as nice as s.p.u.n.k. Kate did not fully appreciate the compliment, I fear."

Billy made a wry face.

"Did I say that? Dear me! I _was_ a terror in those days, wasn't I?

But then," and she laughed softly, "really, Aunt Hannah, that was the prettiest thing I knew how to say, for I considered s.p.u.n.k the top-notch of desirability."

"I think I should have liked to know s.p.u.n.k," smiled Marie from the other side of the sewing table.

"He was a dear," declared Billy. "I had another 'most as good when I first came to Hillside, but he got lost. For a time it seemed as if I never wanted another, but I've about come to the conclusion now that I do, and I've told Bertram to find one for me if he can. You see I shall be lonesome after you're gone, Marie, and I'll have to have _something_," she finished mischievously.

"Oh, I don't mind the inference--as long as I know your admiration of cats," laughed Marie.

"Let me see; Kate writes she is coming the tenth," murmured Aunt Hannah, going back to the letter in her hand.

"Good!" nodded Billy. "That will give time to put little Kate through her paces as flower girl."

"Yes, and it will give Big Kate time to _try_ to make your breakfast a supper, and your roses pinks--or sunflowers," cut in a new voice, dryly.

"Cyril!" chorussed the three ladies in horror, adoration, and amus.e.m.e.nt--according to whether the voice belonged to Aunt Hannah, Marie, or Billy.

Cyril shrugged his shoulders and smiled.

"I beg your pardon," he apologized; "but Rosa said you were in here sewing, and I told her not to bother. I'd announce myself. Just as I got to the door I chanced to hear Billy's speech, and I couldn't resist making the amendment. Maybe you've forgotten Kate's love of managing--but I haven't," he finished, as he sauntered over to the chair nearest Marie.

"No, I haven't--forgotten," observed Billy, meaningly.

"Nor I--nor anybody else," declared a severe voice--both the words and the severity being most extraordinary as coming from the usually gentle Aunt Hannah.

"Oh, well, never mind," spoke up Billy, quickly. "Everything's all right now, so let's forget it. She always meant it for kindness, I'm sure."

"Even when she told you in the first place what a--er--torment you were to us?" quizzed Cyril.

"Yes," flashed Billy. "She was being kind to _you_, then."

"Humph!" vouchsafed Cyril.

For a moment no one spoke. Cyril's eyes were on Marie, who was nervously trying to smooth back a few fluffy wisps of hair that had escaped from restraining combs and pins.

"What's the matter with the hair, little girl?" asked Cyril in a voice that was caressingly irritable. "You've been fussing with that long-suffering curl for the last five minutes!"

Marie's delicate face flushed painfully.

"It's got loose--my hair," she stammered, "and it looks so dowdy that way!"

Billy dropped her thread suddenly. She sprang for it at once, before Cyril could make a move to get it. She had to dive far under a chair to capture it--which may explain why her face was so very red when she finally reached her seat again.