"Grand Opera! Oh, how perfectly lovely," cried Billy.

"Yes, but Billy, do you think she is expecting me to invite her to make her home with me? I shall have to write and explain that I can't--if she does, of course."

Billy frowned and hesitated.

"Why, it sounded--a little--that way; but--" Suddenly her face cleared.

"Aunt Hannah, I've thought of the very thing. We _will_ take her!"

"Oh, Billy, I couldn't think of letting you do that," demurred Aunt Hannah. "You're very kind--but, oh, no; not that!"

"Why not? I think it would be lovely; and we can just as well as not.

After Marie is married in December, she can have that room. Until then she can have the little blue room next to me."

"But--but--we don't know anything about her."

"We know she's your niece, and she's lonesome; and we know she's musical. I shall love her for every one of those things. Of course we'll take her!"

"But--I don't know anything about her age."

"All the more reason why she should be looked out for, then," retorted Billy, promptly. "Why, Aunt Hannah, just as if you didn't want to give this lonesome, unprotected young girl a home!"

"Oh, I do, of course; but--"

"Then it's all settled," interposed Billy, springing to her feet.

"But what if we--we shouldn't like her?"

"Nonsense! What if she shouldn't like us?" laughed Billy. "However, if you'd feel better, just ask her to come and stay with us a month. We shall keep her all right, afterwards. See if we don't!"

Slowly Aunt Hannah got to her feet.

"Very well, dear. I'll write, of course, as you tell me to; and it's lovely of you to do it. Now I'll leave you to your letters. I've hindered you far too long, as it is."

"You've rested me," declared Billy, flinging wide her arms.

Aunt Hannah, fearing a second dizzying whirl impelled by those same young arms, drew her shawls about her shoulders and backed hastily toward the hall door.

Billy laughed.

"Oh, I won't again--to-day," she promised merrily. Then, as the lady reached the arched doorway: "Tell Mary Jane to let us know the day and train and we'll meet her. Oh, and Aunt Hannah, tell her to wear a pink--a white pink; and tell her we will, too," she finished gayly.

CHAPTER III. BILLY AND BERTRAM

Bertram called that evening. Before the open fire in the living-room he found a pensive Billy awaiting him--a Billy who let herself be kissed, it is true, and who even kissed back, shyly, adorably; but a Billy who looked at him with wide, almost frightened eyes.

"Why, darling, what's the matter?" he demanded, his own eyes growing wide and frightened.

"Bertram, it's--done!"

"What's done? What do you mean?"

"Our engagement. It's--announced. I wrote stacks of notes to-day, and even now there are some left for to-morrow. And then there's--the newspapers. Bertram, right away, now, _everybody_ will know it." Her voice was tragic.

Bertram relaxed visibly. A tender light came to his eyes.

"Well, didn't you expect everybody would know it, my dear?"

"Y-yes; but--"

At her hesitation, the tender light changed to a quick fear.

"Billy, you aren't--sorry?"

The pink glory that suffused her face answered him before her words did.

"Sorry! Oh, never, Bertram! It's only that it won't be ours any longer--that is, it won't belong to just our two selves. Everybody will know it. And they'll bow and smile and say 'How lovely!' to our faces, and 'Did you ever?' to our backs. Oh, no, I'm not sorry, Bertram; but I am--afraid."

"_Afraid_--Billy!"

"Yes."

Billy sighed, and gazed with pensive eyes into the fire.

Across Bertram's face swept surprise, consternation, and dismay. Bertram had thought he knew Billy in all her moods and fancies; but he did not know her in this one.

"Why, Billy!" he breathed.

Billy drew another sigh. It seemed to come from the very bottoms of her small, satin-slippered feet.

"Well, I am. You're _the_ Bertram Henshaw. You know lots and lots of people that I never even saw. And they'll come and stand around and stare and lift their lorgnettes and say: 'Is that the one? Dear me!'"

Bertram gave a relieved laugh.

"Nonsense, sweetheart! I should think you were a picture I'd painted and hung on a wall."

"I shall feel as if I were--with all those friends of yours. Bertram, what if they don't like it?" Her voice had grown tragic again.

"_Like_ it!"

"Yes. The picture--me, I mean."

"They can't help liking it," he retorted, with the prompt certainty of an adoring lover.