as awful then."

"That only goes to prove, my dear, how entirely unsuitable it was, from
the start."

A bright color flooded Billy's face.

"I know; but if a girl _will_ think a man is asking for a wife when all
he wants is a daughter, and if she blandly says 'Yes, thank you, I'll
marry you,' I don't know what you can expect!"

"You can expect just what you got--misery, and almost a tragedy,"
retorted Aunt Hannah, severely.

A tender light came into Billy's eyes.

"Dear Uncle William! What a jewel he was, all the way through! And he'd
have marched straight to the altar, too, with never a flicker of an
eyelid, I know--self-sacrificing martyr that he was!"

"Martyr!" bristled Aunt Hannah, with extraordinary violence for her.
"I'm thinking that term belonged somewhere else. A month ago, Billy
Neilson, you did not look as if you'd live out half your days. But I
suppose _you'd_ have gone to the altar, too, with never a flicker of an
eyelid!"

"But I thought I had to," protested Billy. "I couldn't grieve Uncle
William so, after Mrs. Hartwell had said how he--he wanted me."

Aunt Hannah's lips grew stern at the corners.

"There are times when--when I think it would be wiser if Mrs. Kate
Hartwell would attend to her own affairs!" Aunt Hannah's voice fairly
shook with wrath.

"Why-Aunt Hannah!" reproved Billy in mischievous horror. "I'm shocked at
you!"

Aunt Hannah flushed miserably.

"There, there, child, forget I said it. I ought not to have said it, of
course," she murmured agitatedly.

Billy laughed.

"You should have heard what Uncle William said! But never mind. We all
found out the mistake before it was too late, and everything is lovely
now, even to Cyril and Marie. Did you ever see anything so beatifically
happy as that couple are? Bertram says he hasn't heard a dirge from
Cyril's rooms for three weeks; and that if anybody else played the kind
of music he's been playing, it would be just common garden ragtime!"

"Music! Oh, my grief and conscience! That makes me think, Billy. If I'm
not actually forgetting what I came in here for," cried Aunt Hannah,
fumbling in the folds of her dress for the letter that had slipped from
her lap. "I've had word from a young niece. She's going to study music
in Boston."

"A niece?"

"Well, not really, you know. She calls me 'Aunt,' just as you and the
Henshaw boys do. But I really am related to _her_, for her mother and I
are third cousins, while it was my husba