e
that as it may. Anyhow, you're coming, and we shall want you all settled
by dinner time," he finished, as he picked up his hat to go.

With Kate, Billy spent the long day very contentedly in Kate's beautiful
Commonwealth Avenue home. The two boys, Paul, twelve years old, and
Egbert, eight, were a little shy, it is true, and not really of much use
as companions; but there was a little Kate, four years old, who proved
to be wonderfully entertaining.

Billy was not much used to children, and she found this four-year-old
atom of humanity to be a great source of interest and amusement. She
even told Mrs. Hartwell at parting that little Kate was almost as nice
as Spunk--which remark, oddly enough, did not appear to please Mrs.
Hartwell to the extent that Billy thought that it would.

At the Beacon Street house Billy was presented at once to Mrs. Stetson.

"And you are to call me 'Aunt Hannah,' my dear," said the little woman,
graciously, "just as the boys do."

"Thank you," dimpled Billy, "and you don't know, Aunt Hannah, how good
it seems to me to come into so many relatives, all at once!"

Upon going up-stairs Billy found her room somewhat changed. It was far
less warlike, and the case of spiders had been taken away.

"And this will be your stratum, you know," announced Bertram from the
stairway, "yours and Aunt Hannah's. You're to have this whole floor.
Will and Cyril are above, and I'm down-stairs."

"You are? Why, I thought you--were--here." Billy's face was puzzled.

"Here? Oh, well, I did have--some things here," he retorted airily; "but
I took them all away to-day. You see, my stratum is down-stairs, and
it doesn't do to mix the layers. By the way, you haven't been up-stairs
yet; have you? Come on, and I'll show you--and you, too, Aunt Hannah."

Billy clapped her hands; but Aunt Hannah shook her head.

"I'll leave that for younger feet than mine," she said; adding
whimsically: "It's best sometimes that one doesn't try to step too far
off one's own level, you know."

"All right," laughed the man. "Come on, Miss Billy."

On the door at the head of the stairs he tapped twice, lightly.

"Well, Pete," called Cyril's voice, none too cordially.

"Pete, indeed!" scoffed Bertram. "You've got company, young man. Open
the door. Miss Billy is viewing the Strata."

The bare floor echoed to a quick tread, then the door opened and Cyril
faced them with a forced smile on his lips.

"Come in--though I fear there w