face. Her eyes danced.

"Oh--oh!" she chuckled. "How perfectly funny! You _have_ evened things
up, after all. To think that Mary Jane should be a--" She paused and
flashed almost angrily suspicious eyes into his face. "But mine _was_
'Billy,'" she cried. "Your name isn't really--Mary Jane'?"

"I am often called that." His brown eyes twinkled, but they did not
swerve from their direct gaze into her own.

"But--" Billy hesitated, and turned her eyes away. She saw then that
many curious glances were already being flung in her direction. The
color in her cheeks deepened. With an odd little gesture she seemed to
toss something aside. "Never mind," she laughed a little hysterically.
"If you'll pick up your bag, please, Mr. Mary Jane, and come with me.
John and Peggy are waiting. Or--I forgot--you have a trunk, of course?"

The man raised a protesting hand.

"Thank you; but, Miss Neilson, really--I couldn't think of trespassing
on your hospitality--now, you know."

"But we--we invited you," stammered Billy.

He shook his head.

"You invited _Miss_ Mary Jane."

Billy bubbled into low laughter.

"I beg your pardon, but it _is_ funny," she sighed. "You see _I_ came
once just the same way, and now to have the tables turned like this!
What will Aunt Hannah say--what will everybody say? Come, I want them to
begin--to say it," she chuckled irrepressibly.

"Thank you, but I shall go to a hotel, of course. Later, if you'll be so
good as to let me call, and explain--!"

"But I'm afraid Aunt Hannah will think--" Billy stopped abruptly. Some
distance away she saw John coming toward them. She turned hurriedly to
the man at her side. Her eyes still danced, but her voice was mockingly
serious. "Really, Mr. Mary Jane, I'm afraid you'll have to come to
dinner; then you can settle the rest with Aunt Hannah. John is almost
upon us--and _I_ don't want to make explanations. Do you?"

"John," she said airily to the somewhat dazed chauffeur (who had been
told he was to meet a young woman), "take Mr. Arkwright's bag, please,
and show him where Peggy is waiting. It will be five minutes, perhaps,
before I can come--if you'll kindly excuse me," she added to Arkwright,
with a flashing glance from merry eyes. "I have some--telephoning to
do."

All the way to the telephone booth Billy was trying to bring order out
of the chaos of her mind; but all the way, too, she was chuckling.

"To think that this thing should have happened to _me!_" s