there was a kitten, too, I believe, 'Spunk,' who
added to the gayety of nations."

"But what did the Henshaws do?"

"Well, I wasn't there, of course; but Bertram says they spun around like
tops gone mad for a time, but finally quieted down enough to summon a
married sister for immediate propriety, and to establish Aunt Hannah for
permanency the next day."

"So that's how it happened! Well, by George!" cried Arkwright.

"Yes," nodded the other. "So you see there are untold possibilities just
in a name. Remember that. Just suppose _you_, as Mary Jane, should beg a
home in a feminine household--say in Miss Billy's, for instance!"

"I'd like to," retorted Arkwright, with sudden warmth.

Calderwell stared a little.

The other laughed shamefacedly.

"Oh, it's only that I happen to have a devouring curiosity to meet
that special young lady. I sing her songs (you know she's written some
dandies!), I've heard a lot about her, and I've seen her picture."
(He did not add that he had also purloined that same picture from his
mother's bureau--the picture being a gift from Aunt Hannah.) "So you
see I would, indeed, like to occupy a corner in the fair Miss Billy's
household. I could write to Aunt Hannah and beg a home with her, you
know; eh?"

"Of course! Why don't you--'Mary Jane'?" laughed Calderwell. "Billy'd
take you all right. She's had a little Miss Hawthorn, a music teacher,
there for months. She's always doing stunts of that sort. Belle writes
me that she's had a dozen forlornites there all this last summer, two
or three at a time-tired widows, lonesome old maids, and crippled
kids--just to give them a royal good time. So you see she'd take you,
without a doubt. Jove! what a pair you'd make: Miss Billy and Mr. Mary
Jane! You'd drive the suffragettes into conniption fits--just by the
sound of you!"

Arkwright laughed quietly; then he frowned.

"But how about it?" he asked. "I thought she was keeping house with Aunt
Hannah. Didn't she stay at all with the Henshaws?"

"Oh, yes, a few months. I never knew just why she did leave, but I
fancied, from something Billy herself said once, that she discovered she
was creating rather too much of an upheaval in the Strata. So she took
herself off. She went to school, and travelled considerably. She was
over here when I met her first. After that she was with us all one
summer on the yacht. A couple of years ago, or so, she went back to
Boston, bought a house and settled down