t
Hannah with grim positiveness.

"No, I don't mean to," smiled Billy, wistfully. "I only told you so
you'd understand that it was just as well if I did have something to
take up my mind--besides Bertram. And of course music would be the most
natural thing."

"Yes, of course," agreed Aunt Hannah.

"And it seems actually almost providential that Mary--I mean Mr.
Arkwright is here to help me, now that Cyril is gone," went on Billy,
still a little wistfully.

"Yes, of course. He isn't like--a stranger," murmured Aunt Hannah. Aunt
Hannah's voice sounded as if she were trying to convince herself--of
something.

"No, indeed! He seems just like one of the family to me, almost as if he
were really--your niece, Mary Jane," laughed Billy.

Aunt Hannah moved restlessly.

"Billy," she hazarded, "he knows, of course, of your engagement?"

"Why, of course he does, Aunt Hannah everybody does!" Billy's eyes were
plainly surprised.

"Yes, yes, of course--he must," subsided Aunt Hannah, confusedly, hoping
that Billy would not divine the hidden reason behind her question. She
was relieved when Billy's next words showed that she had not divined it.

"I told you, didn't I? He's coming up this afternoon. He can't get here
till five, though; but he's so interested! He's about as crazy over the
thing as I am. And it's going to be fine, Aunt Hannah, when it's done.
You just wait and see!" she finished gayly, as she tripped from the
room.

Left to herself, Aunt Hannah drew a long breath.

"I'm glad she didn't suspect," she was thinking. "I believe she'd
consider even the _question_ disloyal to Bertram--dear child! And of
course Mary"--Aunt Hannah corrected herself with cheeks aflame--"I mean
Mr. Arkwright does--know."

It was just here, however, that Aunt Hannah was mistaken. Mr. Arkwright
did not--know. He had not reached Boston when the engagement was
announced. He knew none of Billy's friends in town save the Henshaw
brothers. He had not heard from Calderwell since he came to Boston. The
very evident intimacy of Billy with the Henshaw brothers he accepted as
a matter of course, knowing the history of their acquaintance, and the
fact that Billy was Mr. William Henshaw's namesake. As to Bertram
being Billy's lover--that idea had long ago been killed at birth by
Calderwell's emphatic assertion that the artist would never care for any
girl--except to paint. Since coming to Boston, Arkwright had seen little
of the two together. H