n to America for some time. During the summer she wrote
occasionally to William, and gave glowing accounts of their travels.
Then in September came the letter telling him that they had concluded to
stay through the winter in Paris. Billy wrote that she had decided not
to go to college. She would take up some studies there in Paris, she
said, but she would devote herself more particularly to her music.

When the next summer came there was still something other than America
to claim her attention: the Calderwells had invited her to cruise with
them for three months. Their yacht was a little floating palace of
delight, Billy declared, not to mention the charm of the unknown lands
and waters that she and Aunt Hannah would see.

Of all this Billy wrote to William--at occasional intervals--but she did
not come home. Even when the next autumn came, there was still Paris to
detain her for another long winter of study.

In the Henshaw house on Beacon Street, William mourned not a little as
each recurring season brought no Billy.

"The idea! It's just as if one didn't have a namesake!" he fumed.

"Well, did you have one?" Bertram demanded one day. "Really, Will, I'm
beginning to think she's a myth. Long years ago, from the first of
April till June we did have two frolicsome sprites here that announced
themselves as 'Billy' and 'Spunk,' I'll own. And a year later, by ways
devious and secret, we three managed to see the one called 'Billy' off
on a great steamship. Since then, what? A word--a message--a scrap of
paper. Billy's a myth, I say!"

William sighed.

"Sometimes I don't know but you are right," he admitted. "Why, it'll
be three years next June since Billy was here. She must be nearly
twenty-one--and we know almost nothing about her."

"That's so. I wonder--" Bertram paused, and laughed a little, "I wonder
if NOW she'd play guardian angel to me through the streets of Boston."

William threw a keen glance into his brother's face.

"I don't believe it would be quite necessary, NOW, Bert," he said
quietly.

The other flushed a little, but his eyes softened.

"Maybe not, Will; still--one can always find some use for--a guardian
angel, you know," he finished, almost under his breath.

To Cyril Bertram had occasionally spoken, during the last two years,
of their first suspicions concerning Billy's absence. They speculated
vaguely, too, as to why she had gone, and if she would ever come back;
and they wondered if any