Bertram laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, your Mary Jane won't probably turn out to be quite such a
bombshell as our Billy did--unless she should prove to be a boy," he
added whimsically. "Oh, but Billy, she _can't_ turn out to be such a
dear treasure," finished the man. And at the adoring look in his eyes
Billy blushed deeply--and promptly forgot all about Mary Jane and her
pink.

CHAPTER IV. FOR MARY JANE

"I have a letter here from Mary Jane, my dear," announced Aunt Hannah at
the luncheon table one day.

"Have you?" Billy raised interested eyes from her own letters. "What
does she say?"

"She will be here Thursday. Her train is due at the South Station at
four-thirty. She seems to be very grateful to you for your offer to let
her come right here for a month; but she says she's afraid you don't
realize, perhaps, just what you are doing--to take her in like that,
with her singing, and all."

"Nonsense! She doesn't refuse, does she?"

"Oh, no; she doesn't refuse--but she doesn't accept either, exactly, as
I can see. I've read the letter over twice, too. I'll let you judge for
yourself by and by, when you have time to read it."

Billy laughed.

"Never mind. I don't want to read it. She's just a little shy about
coming, that's all. She'll stay all right, when we come to meet her.
What time did you say it was, Thursday?"

"Half past four, South Station."

"Thursday, at half past four. Let me see--that's the day of the
Carletons' 'At Home,' isn't it?"

"Oh, my grief and conscience, yes! But I had forgotten it. What shall we
do?"

"Oh, that will be easy. We'll just go to the Carletons' early and have
John wait, then take us from there to the South Station. Meanwhile we'll
make sure that the little blue room is all ready for her. I put in my
white enamel work-basket yesterday, and that pretty little blue case for
hairpins and curling tongs that I bought at the fair. I want the room to
look homey to her, you know."

"As if it could look any other way, if _you_ had anything to do with
it," sighed Aunt Hannah, admiringly.

Billy laughed.

"If we get stranded we might ask the Henshaw boys to help us out, Aunt
Hannah. They'd probably suggest guns and swords. That's the way they
fixed up _my_ room."

Aunt Hannah raised shocked hands of protest.

"As if we would! Mercy, what a time that was!"

Billy laughed again.

"I never shall forget, _never_, my first glimpse of that room when Mrs