risp coldness; "but, distasteful as darns
and patches are to us, we prefer them, infinitely, to--charity!"

"Oh, but, please, I didn't mean--you didn't understand," faltered Billy.

For answer Alice Greggory walked deliberately to the door and held it
open.

"Oh, Alice, my dear," pleaded Mrs. Greggory again, feebly.

"Come, Billy! We'll bid you good morning, ladies," said William
Henshaw then, decisively. And Billy, with a little wistful pat on Mrs.
Greggory's clasped hands, went.

Once down the long four flights of stairs and out on the sidewalk,
William Henshaw drew a long breath.

"Well, by Jove! Billy, the next time I take you curio hunting, it won't
be to this place," he fumed.

"Wasn't it awful!" choked Billy.

"Awful! The girl was the most stubborn, unreasonable, vixenish little
puss I ever saw. I didn't want her old Lowestoft if she didn't want
to sell it! But to practically invite me there, and then treat me like
that!" scolded the collector, his face growing red with anger. "Still, I
was sorry for the poor little old lady. I wish, somehow, she could have
that hundred dollars!" It was the man who said this, not the collector.

"So do I," rejoined Billy, dolefully. "But that girl was so--so queer!"
she sighed, with a frown. Billy was puzzled. For the first time,
perhaps, in her life, she knew what it was to have her proffered "ice
cream" disdainfully refused.

CHAPTER XVII. ONLY A LOVE SONG, BUT--

Kate and little Kate left for the West on the afternoon of
the fifteenth, and Bertram arrived from New York that evening.
Notwithstanding the confusion of all this, Billy still had time to give
some thought to her experience of the morning with Uncle William.
The forlorn little room with its poverty-stricken furnishings and its
crippled mistress was very vivid in Billy's memory. Equally vivid were
the flashing eyes of Alice Greggory as she had opened the door at the
last.

"For," as Billy explained to Bertram that evening, after she had told
him the story of the morning's adventure, "you see, dear, I had never
been really _turned out_ of a house before!"

"I should think not," scowled her lover, indignantly; "and it's safe to
say you never will again. The impertinence of it! But then, you won't
see them any more, sweetheart, so we'll just forget it."

"Forget it! Why, Bertram, I couldn't! You couldn't, if you'd been there.
Besides, of course I shall see them again!"

Bertram's jaw dropped.