ing Kate's letter. Anger was uppermost at the moment, and with one
sweeping wrench of her trembling fingers she tore the closely written
sheets straight through the middle, and flung them into the little
wicker basket by her desk. Then she went down-stairs and played her
noisiest, merriest Tarantella, and tried to see how fast she could make
her fingers fly.

But Billy could not, of course, play tarantellas all day; and even while
she did play them she could not forget that waste-basket up-stairs, and
the horror it contained. The anger was still uppermost, but the terror
was prodding her at every turn, and demanding to know just what it was
that Kate had written in that letter, anyway. It is not strange then,
perhaps, that before two hours passed, Billy went up-stairs, took the
letter from the basket, matched together the torn half-sheets and forced
her shrinking eyes to read every word again-just to satisfy that terror
which would not be silenced.

At the end of the second reading, Billy reminded herself with stern
calmness that it was only Kate, after all; that nobody ought to mind
what Kate said; that certainly _she_, Billy, ought not--after the
experience she had already had with her unpleasant interference! Kate
did not know what she was talking about, anyway. This was only another
case of her trying "to manage." She did so love to manage--everything!

At this point Billy got out her pen and paper and wrote to Kate.

It was a formal, cold little letter, not at all the sort that Billy's
friends usually received. It thanked Kate for her advice, and for
her "kind willingness" to have Billy for a sister; but it hinted that
perhaps Kate did not realize that as long as Billy was the one who would
have to _live_ with the chosen man, it would be pleasanter to take the
one Billy loved, which happened in this case to be Bertram--not William.
As for any "quarrel" being the cause of whatever fancied trouble there
was with the new picture--the letter scouted that idea in no uncertain
terms. There had been no suggestion of a quarrel even once since the
engagement.

Then Billy signed her name and took the letter out to post immediately.

For the first few minutes after the letter had been dropped into the
green box at the corner, Billy held her head high, and told herself that
the matter was now closed. She had sent Kate a courteous, dignified,
conclusive, effectual answer, and she thought with much satisfaction of
the thin