susceptible to the
"call" she believed had come to her for some reason other than a
willingness for martyrdom,--but in both cases the sincerity of the
response was too genuine to be questioned. Billy's infatuated wooing
seemed to her like sacrilege, and his mad plan for elopement too
ridiculous for discussion.

"Let us be friends, dear Billy," she said to him sweetly and
gently,--"just friends, you and Philip and I. We'll always have the best
of times together, help each other over the hard places, and sympathize
with every sorrow which comes to any one of us."

"No!" he protested vigorously, kicking viciously at an inoffensive root
protruding slightly beneath his foot. "Nix on this brother and sister
game; there's nothing in it."

"I need you as a friend, Billy,--I need you this very minute!"

Billy pricked up his ears at the words and at the pathetic note in
Merry's voice; but he did not intend to be caught off his guard.

"What do you mean 'need me as a friend'? Want me to run an errand for
you? All right, off I go."

"No, Billy; I need your sympathy. We're old pals, and ought to stand by
each other."

He looked at her with a dawning understanding.

"Merry," he said, with the conviction of one who has made a great
discovery,--"you're unhappy!"

"Perhaps," she admitted; "I'm not sure."

"I knew it!" he declared with satisfaction. "You are unhappy and I know
the reason why: you're in love with me without realizing it. You're
fighting against your destiny and you don't understand what the trouble
is. That's why you are unhappy."

"No, no, Billy; that isn't it."

"Yes, it is; you take my word for it. We'll just slip it over on the
whole bunch, get married, and then you'll see. You'll be as happy as a
lark."

"Oh! Billy, I do wish you'd be serious!"

"Serious? ha! I should say I was serious! And to show you how sure I am
I'm right, I'll make you a sporting proposition: if our getting married
doesn't shake your fit of blues then we'll call the whole thing off.
What do you say?"

Merry laughed in spite of herself. "You certainly are the most
impossible boy! You speak of getting married as if it were a set of
tennis."

"It's easy enough to get a divorce. Why don't you take a chance? Come
on, be a sport!"

When he found this wooing ineffective, Billy adopted the tragic _motif_.
"Every time I think I've picked a rose," he declared disconsolately, "it
turns out to be poison ivy; and here I am, stung agai