ed; and below them
were the dining-room and the kitchen. Here ruled Dong Ling, the Chinese
cook, and Pete.

Pete was--indeed, it is hard telling what Pete was. He said he was the
butler; and he looked the part when he answered the bell at the great
front door. But at other times, when he swept a room, or dusted Master
William's curios, he looked--like nothing so much as what he was: a
fussy, faithful old man, who expected to die in the service he had
entered fifty years before as a lad.

Thus in all the Beacon Street house, there had not for years been the
touch of a woman's hand. Even Kate, the married sister, had long since
given up trying to instruct Dong Ling or to chide Pete, though she still
walked across the Garden from her Commonwealth Avenue home and tripped
up the stairs to call in turn upon her brothers, Bertram, William, and
Cyril.

CHAPTER III

THE STRATA--WHEN THE LETTER COMES

It was on the six o'clock delivery that William Henshaw received the
letter from his namesake, Billy. To say the least, the letter was a
great shock to him. He had not quite forgotten Billy's father, who had
died so long ago, it is true, but he had forgotten Billy, entirely. Even
as he looked at the disconcerting epistle with its round, neatly formed
letters, he had great difficulty in ferreting out the particular niche
in his memory which contained the fact that Walter Neilson had had a
child, and had named it for him.

And this child, this "Billy," this unknown progeny of an all but
forgotten boyhood friend, was asking a home, and with him! Impossible!
And William Henshaw peered at the letter as if, at this second reading,
its message could not be so monstrous.

"Well, old man, what's up?" It was Bertram's amazed voice from the hall
doorway; and indeed, William Henshaw, red-faced and plainly trembling,
seated on the lowest step of the stairway, and gazing, wild-eyed, at the
letter in his hand, was somewhat of an amazing sight. "What IS up?"

"What's up!" groaned William, starting to his feet, and waving the
letter frantically in the air. "What's up! Young man, do you want us to
take in a child to board?--a CHILD?" he repeated in slow horror.

"Well, hardly," laughed the other. "Er, perhaps Cyril might like it,
though; eh?"

"Come, come, Bertram, be sensible for once," pleaded his brother,
nervously. "This is serious, really serious, I tell you!"

"What is serious?" demanded Cyril, coming down the stairway. "Can