Miss Billy

MARIE JEAN HENNESY was making her morning toilet. The sun was five hours high, but for this Marie Jean cared nothing at all. She finished tying a row of white rags in her hair that gave her a peculiarly spiked and bristling appearance, and then buttoned her velveteen waist here and there, leaving a button over at the top and bringing a mateless buttonhole out at the bottom.

Marie Jean's room was in a state of disorder that suggested its owner had participated in late festivities the night before. A pair of soiled white slippers were flung under the bed, together with a pair of down-trodden shoes which Marie Jean, on her knees, was even now seeking. A white gown that had lost much of its pristine purity was thrown over a chair, while belts, ribbons, soap, corset-strings, fans, handkerchiefs, powder-puffs and stockings occupied conspicuous positions on the furniture or on the floor. Every drawer had its mouth shut tight on a large mouthful of its possessions,—and the dresser top was so filled with combs, brushes, perfumery, thread, safety pins, matches, hair-pins and bottles, that the only wonder was it could hold it all.

But the rapt expression of Marie Jean Hennesy's face betokened that her thoughts were far away from the mean subject of household disorder. She was studying the programme of the ball of the night before, at which she had danced every number. To be sure, her slippers had hurt her, and she had endured an uncomfortable pinch in the waist, but murmurs of admiration on every side had told her she "looked lovely." She hummed a bit of a waltz tune and glanced coquettishly in the mirror as the remembrance of her conquests flowed warmly back to her: then discovering that by the morning light she was looking sallow, she rescued the jar of Maiden's Blush from under the bureau and deftly applied it to her cheeks.

That Marie Jean's breakfast waited, no one with a nose could deny. The smoky fat of much fried bacon festooned the air in graceful clouds, alluring the tardy maid kitchenward. It swung riotously in the folds of the parlour curtains and luxuriated on the best plush parlour chairs, while the essence of boiled coffee stalked boldly upstairs, calling loudly, "Come down, Marie Jean,—we've waited for hours."

In the kitchen there were evidences that Mrs. Hennesy had been scrubbing. A pail of scrubbing water stood on the floor, and the brush and soap lay beside. A sharp boundary line, also, divided the clean from the unclean. But the floor was quite dry, and Mrs. Hennesy's apron was nearly dry, and she was so absorbed in looking out of the window at the people that were moving in next door that she did not hear Marie Jean enter the kitchen. When she became aware of her presence she gave an apologetic little cough, and bustled about the stove serving the delayed breakfast.

"If I'd knowed ye was up, Mary Jane," she said deprecatingly, "I'd've fixed somethin' else fer yer breakfast. I've been kapin' this since sivin o'clock an' it's near noon now. What kind of a time was there at the dance last night? I tried to kape awake till ye come in, but I was that tired wit' the ironin' I dropped off in spite of mesilf. Did ye enjoy yerself?"

"Oh, fairly well," drawled Marie Jean, toying languidly with her cup and spoon: there was a wrinkle between the eyes, and a haughty uplifting of the chin that warned Mrs. Hennesy that as ever after a ball, Marie Jean was cross, and she hastened to change the subject to impersonal topics.

"The new folks is movin' in next door," she volunteered: "they must have been doin' a lot of repairs. The painters an' paper hangers has just got their ladders an' things moved out, an' the carpets is bein' nailed down now: they've kep' the racket up since sivin o'clock this mornin'. Sure now, I do be missin' Mrs. Casey more an' more ivery day,—a-comin' in an' out wit' a pail, or the coal hod, or the potatay peelin's, an' always stoppin' to spake neighbourly like, over the fince. It's hard to see new folks movin' in."

"What manner of people are they?" inquired Marie Jean, leaning languidly back in her chair.

"Oh, they seem good enough folks," returned Mrs. Hennesy, "but they'll niver be what Mrs. Casey was,—that frindly an' obligin' she was that she'd lind the head off her shoulders. The man looks like wan of thim Protestant praists,—an' the woman's young lookin', all but her white hair. There's two girls about yer age, Mary Jane, an' a boy, besides a hired girl. They've got good furniture,—nothin' so good as our plush parlour set, though,—an' I don't much care for the colour of their carpets. Still, I guess they'll be good neighbours enough."

Marie Jean pushed back her breakfast and stepped over to the window. The scene that met her eyes was an animated one. Workmen were lifting furniture and household goods out of a heavy moving van and hurrying them into the house. A tall gentlemen in a silk hat was beating a rug in the back yard. A stout-armed maid was suspended out of an upper story window with pail, brushes and fluttering rags, engaged in cleaning the glass. A tall broad-shouldered youth in a baggy pair of overalls was digging out the rotten fenceposts: and last of all, a girl in a gingham dress, a girl with flushed face and wavy hair tucked up under an old hat, was energetically raking the yard and gathering the dirt into little piles.

"Mercy!" exclaimed Marie Jean Hennesy. Then she added haughtily, "I shall not call upon them."

CHAPTER V

A LOAD OF DIRT

IT was Saturday morning and a great hammering was going on in the Hennesy yard. Whenever the hammering ceased for a moment, a boyish whistle took its place. It was a cheerful whistle and an infectious one. The minister in his study was working up his sermon for Sunday morning. It was called "The Simple Life," but it was growing all too complex and knotty, and the minister leaned back in his chair with relaxed muscles and contemplated his work with a troubled air. The whistle burst into song and floated in through the window with the sunshine:

The minister sat straight again and dipped his pen in the ink. Life was so simple after all. "Love ye one another and keep my commandments." The sermon smoothed itself out and flowed evenly along to the tune of "Paradise Alley."

Miss Billy was on the side of the house stirring the virgin soil with an axe preparatory to putting in her pansies. Theodore came jauntily out of the door, his hat and shoes well brushed and shaking out a clean handkerchief.

"Well!" exclaimed Miss Billy reproachfully, "I thought you were going to help me to-day."

"Would that I could!" said Theodore, waving the handkerchief gracefully at her. "But Mistress Billy, gaze upon my shoes."

"I see they are your patent leathers. I should think you would wear your others Saturday."

"That's the beginning of the story," said Theodore, lowering his voice confidentially. "These are my all,—and hush, Billy,—these are busted. I've got exactly nineteen cents in the world, but I've recorded a vow to buy my own clothes and schoolbooks, hereafter. I'll not ask father for another cent of money. Therefore I go hence to seek a job."

"Well, go on then, and good luck to you," said Miss Billy, taking up the axe again. "But this soil—" and she made a savage chop at the ground with each word, "—is—just—all—stones—and—clay."

As Theodore departed, the hammering in the Hennesy yard waned and the melody lifted again.

Miss Billy's face brightened, and throwing down the axe she went to the fence and stood looking over at the panorama which unfolded itself.

The Hennesy house, in years past, had evidently done duty as a store. It was a dilapidated old brick building, set crookedly on its lot, with two disproportionately large front windows in the lower half, and a big deep-set front door. Above the second story the house terminated abruptly in a flat tin roof without ornamentation of any kind. In the rear of the lot there were a barn, a wagon shed, and a chicken house, all shedding various coats and colours of whitewash, and all in the last stages of disrepair. Scattered promiscuously about the yard were broken wagon wheels, wood-racks, chickens, pine wood, and old tin cans,—while a lame horse, a boy, a leaning pump, a dilapidated clothes-reel and two wobbly puppies further graced the scene. Grass, flower or shrub there was none,—but there was mud,—plenty of it; mud wet and mud dried. And the deep ruts in the ground, together with the broken wheels lying around, and the strong barny smell pervading the place, gave testimony that Mr. Hennesy followed "teaming" for a living.

The hammering was beginning again when Miss Billy spoke:

"What are you making?" she asked pleasantly.

John Thomas Hennesy looked up. As to turned up nose and freckles, he much resembled Marie Jean, but his mouth was firmer. He gave Miss Billy a long penetrating stare, and the colour did not begin to creep into his cheeks until after he had dropped his head.

"I'm fixin' a new kennel fer my dog," he said shamefacedly.

"Goodness!" thought Miss Billy, "he's older than I thought. He must be at least fifteen." Then she went on aloud, "I wonder if it is a white bulldog with a black spot on its back?"

"Yes,—that's her," answered the boy, looking up with quick interest.

"Then she's been calling on me a week steadily, for bones," declared Miss Billy gaily. "I'm so glad to know her."

John Thomas took up his hammer again and began to search irresolutely through his nail box at his side, but Miss Billy stood her ground with her arms behind her and her chin resting on the top of the fence.

"He's wishing I would go," she thought, "but I am not going. I shall stand right here until I get courage enough to ask him to come over and help me with the pansy bed. But it's awkward,—awfully awkward. I can't think of a thing to say."

"I liked your dog the moment I saw her," she went on: "I owned one like her three years ago."

John Thomas, having found his nail, hesitated no longer, but began to drive it into the frame with ringing strokes. Miss Billy waited until the hammering subsided.

"A friend of father's gave her to me when she was a little bow-legged puppy. She was a beautiful dog, white, with nice burnt sienna spots, and a lovely disposition. I named her Serena on account of that disposition. But she had the funniest looking tail, with three queer kind of corkscrews in it." (Miss Billy illustrated with a whirl of her forefinger that was entirely lost upon John Thomas.)

"But I didn't care,—I loved Serena, if her tail did go in a corkscrew. But one summer my cousin, who was studying medicine, came to visit us, and Serena's tail seemed to bother him an awful lot. He kept making remarks about it all the time, and said it had been broken and ought to come off. So at last I consented."

John Thomas had picked out another nail, but now for the first time began to display interest in the story, and looked up from his work as Miss Billy went on:

"We gave her chloroform: I held the sponge myself while my cousin performed the operation. It didn't hurt her at all, and she really seemed handsomer without the tail, but a sorry sequel followed. I went to Philadelphia soon after, and while I was there my uncle took me to a dog show. I never before saw so many beautiful dogs and among them was one almost exactly like my Serena, and with three twists in her tail."

"'You have a dog just like mine,' I said to the man who owned her.

"'Has your dog a tail like this?' he asked.

"I told him 'yes,' and was just going on to explain to him how I had had it operated upon when he interrupted me. 'Then it was a good breed,' he said. 'That tail is the mark of a fine dog. Each curl in the tail adds fifteen dollars to the value of the animal.'"

Miss Billy's eyes looked solemnly down into John Thomas's widely distended orbs: "Think of it!" she said: "Forty-five dollars cut off at one fell swoop! I can assure you my cousin has never heard the last of it."

"Where's the dog now?"

"Dead. Run over by a street car. I cried for months. I don't expect to ever own another like Serena."

John Thomas drew a long breath, and turning to his box began a search for a leather hinge.

Miss Billy felt herself distinctly dismissed, but she still held on to the fence.

"I want to ask you,—" she began again,—"what I can do about a flower bed that's just all stones. I'm trying to dig it, you know."

"Take the stones out," said John Thomas laconically.

"But there wouldn't be anything left! It's all stones!"

"Maybe it's just a fillin', an' there's good dirt underneath," suggested the boy.

"Won't you please step over and look at it?" entreated Miss Billy: so John Thomas, with open reluctance, laid down his hammer and nails, and climbed as awkwardly as possible over the fence.

"If it's fillin' it goes awful deep," he decided, after a quarter of an hour of hard work. "Nothin' can't grow in here."

"But I must have some flowers!" wailed Miss Billy, in despair. "Why, that was one reason that I wanted to come and live on Cherry Street,—because there was a big yard here, you know."

John Thomas was regarding the rocky flower bed musingly. "I'll tell you what I can do," he said at last. "There's more than a foot of this out already,—an' I'll go down to where my father has got some teams hauling dirt from a cellar they're digging, an' I'll bring you a load, if you'd like it. It's good black dirt."

"John Thomas Hennesy!" exclaimed Miss Billy, clasping her hands in ecstasy: "A load,—a whole load,—of black dirt?"

"Why sure," said John Thomas, reddening with pleasure. "They're just dumping it into an old quarry."

"A whole load of black dirt!" said Miss Billy, musingly. "I'll have pansies, and sweet-peas, and geraniums, and I'll sow grass seed on the bad places in the yard. John Thomas Hennesy, you're a prize!"

That evening, as the Lee family assembled around the tea-table, the minister said cheerily, "I had a peculiar thing to be thankful for to-day. It was the song and whistle of a light-hearted boy. It helped me with my sermon."

"I have to be thankful for a daughter who took the cake baking off my hands and helped me with the mending," said Mrs. Lee, smiling over at Beatrice.

"I am thankful for John Thomas Hennesy and black dirt!" declared Miss Billy fervently.

"And I," wound up Theodore proudly, "for getting a steady Saturday job, taking care of Brown's soda fountain, at a dollar a day!"

CHAPTER VI

NEXT DOOR

AT the same hour the Hennesy family were having six o'clock dinner in the kitchen. Mrs. Hennesy, Marie Jean and John Thomas were already seated at the table, but Mr. Hennesy still stood with his head enveloped in the roller towel at the kitchen sink.

"An' ye say her name is Billy, John Thomas?" inquired Mrs. Hennesy, serving the corned beef and cabbage with a liberal hand. "Sure now, it must be a mistake. Maybe it's Milly ye're afther hearin' thim call her. Sure an' Billy's no girl's name at all."

"It's Billy," persisted John Thomas, between mouthfuls of cabbage. "Her real name is Wilhelmina, but it was so long and hard they've called her Miss Billy ever since she was a little girl. The Miss is always in front of it though. That makes it feminoine."

"Saints have mercy!" ejaculated Mrs. Hennesy. "Wilhelmina! It must be Indian! Mary Jane, you ought to be thankful for your own name, that you ought, afther hearin' this wan."

"An' not be thryin' to copy afther thim Frinch quanes that got their heads cut off fer their impidence," put in Mr. Hennesy, emerging from the towel with every hair on end, and seating himself at the table with the scant ceremony of rolling down his shirt sleeves.

Marie Jean gave her little head a toss, which was lost upon Mr. Hennesy as he helped himself to a piece of corned beef from the platter. "Was she glad to get the dirt, John Thomas?" he inquired good-naturedly.

"Glad!" said John Thomas. "Well, she was that tickled you'd 'a' thought it was gold. She tuk me into the house to make lemonade, an' then upstairs to show me her brother's room. My, yo' ought to see it, Mary Jane."

"I s'pose it's just grand," said Marie Jean condescendingly.

"It's all right," replied John Thomas, "an' yo' bet I wisht I had one just like it. There ain't no carpets ner tidies ner fixins. The floor is painted kind o' red, an' the walls are red with all kinds of posters stuck 'round. An' there's a border at the top made out of sheet music with pictures on. My, it's great. Right in the middle of the room there's a punchin' bag strung,—an' he's got dumb bells, an' boxin' gloves, an' there's a case of all kinds of money, some big name she called it, but it means, anyway, collectin' coins. He uses two hair brushes at a time, without any handles to 'em, an' there's a brush fer his teeth, an' a brush fer his hands, an' one fer his nails, an' a thing to polish his nails, an' two brushes fer his shoes, an' one fer his hat, an' another fer his clo'es."

Mr. Hennesy's jaw had dropped lower and lower during this recital. Now he closed his mouth with an effort and looked fixedly at his son.

"John Thomas," he said warningly, "you kape away from that loonytick. Moind me, they're thryin' to take up his moind wid brushes an' punchin' bags, but this kind is cunnin' as foxes, an' there'll be mischief in the end. Moind now, what I say."

"Why, pa," expostulated Marie Jean, with a giggle, "he ain't out of his mind."

"He is," insisted Mr. Hennesy stoutly. "Av coorse he is. Wid a brush fer his hands, an' a brush fer his nails, an' another fer his teeth, an' two widout handles fer his hair, an' wan fer his clo'es an' two fer his shoes an' another fer his hat! Av coorse he is, an' there takin' up his moind wid brushes. Moind what I say."

"Don't expose yer iggerence, Mr. Hennesy," put in his wife good-naturedly. "People uses all thim brushes nowadays."

"Well thin, if he ain't crazy, what kind of work does he be doin' to nade all thim brushes to kape clean,—can ye answer me thot, Mrs. Hennesy?"

John Thomas gracefully turned the conversation. "She give me this," he said, putting his hand in his pocket and extracting something wrapped in tissue paper. "She said she had two others an' had been thinkin' of puttin' this one in the box fer the sufferin' savages, an' would I take it just to remember how we worked together over the flower bed. So then I tuk it."

"What do it be for?" inquired Mr. Hennesy, eyeing the strange object with suspicion.

"It's a nail file, to grind off yer finger nails,—if they grow long enough," answered John Thomas, regarding his own broken nails meditatively. "It's silver, too," he added.

Mr. Hennesy sniffed. "I'll not be borryin' it," he observed. "I'm not nadin' a file to kape me own nails short. The rocks I do be handlin' iv'ry day, John Thomas, seems to be all that's required."

Marie Jean's silvery laugh tinkled on the air as John Thomas returned the file to his pocket and passed his plate for more cabbage.

"Miss Billy's all right, anyhow," he went on, addressing his conversation to Marie Jean, for the laugh rankled. "She ain't ashamed if her name is Wilhelmina, or even Miss Billy: an' she don't have no big bushy frizzes coverin' up her ears, an' she don't wear feathers in her hat. She told me so herself."

Marie Jean's laugh tinkled again, and she rose from the table. She did not offer to help her mother wash the dishes, but swept into the hall and took her hat down from the rack, preparatory to going down town. It was a large black hat, heavy with buckles and plumes. She adjusted it coquettishly on her head so that one plume hung directly over her eyes, and took down her gloves.

The vision that gazed back at her from the hall glass was certainly an entrancing one, but Marie Jean lingered for an experiment. She lifted the heavy hair off her ears, tucked it up out of sight, and holding back the waving plumes, gazed again. Then with a shrug of her shoulders, she let hair and plumes fall, and swept out of the house.

On the other side of Number 12 Cherry Street Mrs. Canary was seated on the doorstep with the Baby and the Other Baby in her lap.

It had been a hard day for Mrs. Canary, for there had been an unusual amount of deferred mending and cleaning as a grand round up for the Sabbath. But now that the supper was over, she felt at liberty to draw her first breath in the cool Spring air, while her oldest daughter, Holly Belle, assisted by Ginevra, commonly known as "Jinny," cleared away the remains of the evening meal.

On the sidewalk in front of the house, Launcelot and Fridoline were quarrelling over a catapult, while little Mike, sitting on the gate post, was adding his shrill voice to the general tumult. Mrs. Canary, who was a great lover of romance and revelled in the lurid pages of the Hearthside Companion and kindred publications was responsible for the high-sounding names of her children from Holly Belle to Fridoline. When little Mike had arrived on the scene, however, Policeman Canary had put his foot down on the cherished proposition to name the boy Lorenzo.

"You've done yer duty by all the rest of 'em," he said, "an' you've named 'em a-plenty. Their own father has to call 'em 'say' when he speaks to 'em. This one'll be Mike." And Mike he was.

Owing to this difference of opinion between the heads of the household, the two latest arrivals were still known as the "Baby," and the "Other Baby." But Mrs. Canary, in spite of her romantic tendencies and slip-shod ways, was a loving wife and mother, and had done her easy-going best to make her husband and children comfortable. Years of poverty and toil and trouble had not destroyed the zest of living for her, nor altered her naturally sweet disposition.

Mrs. Canary hushed the two babies upon her breast, and rocked slowly back and forth, making an improvised cradle of her body.

Night came late in Cherry Street during the month of May, but the dusk of the evening already enveloped the tiny porch. The night wind blew in coldly across the lake. But Mrs. Canary, oblivious to the chill in the air and the growing darkness, continued to read aloud, in her eager absorption, from a folded paper held above the children:

"'Two gleam-ing eyes looked out from the thick-et upon the moonlit path, where the beautiful Lady Gab-ri-ell-e paced to and fro with her lover. The moonlight shone full upon her robe of shimmering satin, thickly en-crusted with pearls, and sparkled in the diamonds that looped her fair tresses. Lionel Mont-fort bent ten-der-ly over her. Burning love was written in every line of his handsome face, and all thoughts of future en-grand-dise-ment were forgotten for the nonce. "Darling," he murmured, "I have found my affinity, and nothing shall come between us. Let my Lady mother rave,—nothing now shall per-suade me to marry the countess."

"'At this juncture there ap-peared upon the Lady Gab-ri-ell-e's beautiful face a look of hor-ror that her lover never for-got. "Treachery!" she cried, and pointed to the thicket. Her lover's eyes followed her out-stretched finger,—but too late. A burst of flame leaped from the thicket, two terri-bul shrieks rang out on the night air——'"

So intent upon the fate of the Lady Gabrielle was she, that she did not hear, above the noise of the dish washing and the quarrelling children, a genuine shriek that did ring out upon the night air. It was not until little Mike pulled her gown with an excited exclamation, that she came back to the world of reality.

"What's that you say?" she said.

Mike repeated his remark:

"Launkelot hitted a man wiv his catter pole."

Mrs. Canary beamed with pride. "Launkelot always was a accurate shot," she said fondly.

At that moment the young marksman appeared at the gate. He was shrieking at the top of his healthy young lungs, and was being hurried along the ground by means of a strong arm which had united itself with his ear. At the other end of the arm was a tall, fierce old man, carrying a muddy top-hat in one hand, and hurrying his victim along with the other. The rest of the hastily summoned Canary flock brought up the rear of the procession.

Mrs. Canary laid the two babies behind the door where they could not be stepped upon in the melee, and faced the enemy boldly.

"What's the matter here?" she inquired fiercely. "Let go that boy. What's he done, I want to know?"

"I will haf' the law on him already!" said the old man. His face was fairly purple with rage and his voice shook so that the words were hardly intelligible.

"Leave go of him!" commanded Mrs. Canary, with spirit. Then her voice changed as she recognised the man before her. "Oh," she said, in a milder tone, "it's you, is it? Launkelot didn't go to hurt ye, I'm sure. Leave go the boy, an' let him tell about it."

The old man seemed not to hear her mollifying words.

"He hung on to my buggy," he said, in angry tones, "unt when I tell him to 'get off,' he answer me back. I lick him behind mit my whip, unt he shoot me in the headt mit his snap gun——"

"That wasn't the way it happened," said a clear voice above them.

The excited little group glanced up quickly. A young girl stood looking over the fence,—a girl in a white gown, with soft hair that shone like copper in the lamplight.

"Excuse me for interrupting," she said, "but I couldn't help hearing your conversation, and I want to tell you the whole story. I saw you drive past, and the robe was hanging out of your buggy. This little boy,—his name is Launcelot, isn't it?—ran out to put it in. You called to him not to hang on, and he answered that he was only putting in your robe for you. Without stopping to listen, you struck him with your whip. It was a mean and cruel thing to do. Then he did shoot at you with his catapult, but you can't blame him for that! I should have done it myself if you had struck me."

The old man stood gazing uneasily from one to the other during this recital. He loosened his grasp of the boy with a muttered growl.

"Why didn't you talk louder then?" he said to the astonished Launcelot.

An embarrassed silence fell upon the little group. The old man seemed dazed by the unexpected turn affairs had taken. He stared off into space, and shifted his weight from one foot to the other without finding further words. Then he cast a hurried glance at the girl standing above him, and shuffled off into the growing darkness.

Mrs. Canary caught the young sharpshooter to her breast.

"Ma's little hero-ine," she said fondly. "That's what ye get fer doin' good to that old sarpint. But you was cleared all right, wasn't ye? Thank the lady, Launkelot."

"Launkelot" dug his bare foot into the floor, and murmured a few words that might be interpreted as an expression of gratitude.

"He is thankful, though bashful at the present moment," explained Mrs. Canary gratefully. "He ain't usened to havin' young ladies in white dresses, with hair of tarnished gold, springin' out of the dark like flamin' seruphims to defend him."

"Oh, I happened to be sitting on this side of the shelf, and I couldn't help hearing what was said," answered the girl merrily.

"The shelf, is it?" asked Mrs. Canary, looking puzzled.

The girl laughed. "The piazza,—the porch, I mean. We call it the shelf over here, because it's only about wide enough to set a pan of milk on. We're your new neighbours, you know."

"Well, it's glad I am to meet you," said Mrs. Canary heartily. "Fridoline, be sure the babies' fingers ain't in that crack when you lean against that door. We're glad to make your acquaintance and thankful fer your defence of us: ain't we, Launkelot? You see I couldn't rise in defence of my own innercent blood as swift as usual—I was that surprised at finding out who it was he had hitten. It was bold of you to talk that way to his face,—the old villain!"

"Why, whom do you mean?" asked Miss Billy.

"That was Mr. Schultzsky, the landlord," said Mrs. Canary.

CHAPTER VII

TRIALS

"Oh, how full of briars is this working day world."

MISS BILLY had broken her shoe-string. There was not another in the house and the clock pointed half past eight of a school morning.

"If you're ready," said Theodore, putting his head in the door, "I'll walk to school with you. I have something to tell you."

"I'm not ready, and don't expect to be," said Miss Billy crossly, giving the lace a pull and breaking it again. "There now, it can never be tied. I shan't go to school at all this morning, so there!"

Beatrice was shaking the pillows at the open window. "Why Wilhelmina Lee!" she exclaimed,—"what a temper! How do you ever expect to get through the world if the breaking of a shoe-string upsets you?"

"Oh, it's all very well for you to moralise," retorted Miss Billy, trying to repair the offending lacing, "you who have nothing to do but stay at home and play lady, or do a little dusting. Look at me,—going to school every day, taking two music lessons a week, 'way back in my Latin, and those geraniums are not set out yet and it's going to rain this morning. It's enough to make any one wish to die."

"We've no time for a funeral this morning," said Mrs. Lee, bustling cheerily into the room. "Beatrice, I shall have to ask you to wash the breakfast dishes. Maggie's toothache is worse, and she is getting ready to go to the dentist. I promised her that I would make the pudding and put the bread into the pans."

"Dear me," scolded Beatrice; "I was just going to sweep my room. I can't put it off. Maggie has toothache rather too frequently, I think, and dishwater just ruins my hands!"

"Well, of all the howling dervishes this morning!" said Theodore in the hall. "Miss Billy, come along if you're ready, and there'll be one less."

The minister stood in the doorway. He held Miss Billy long enough to rub a finger gently over the pucker between her eyes.

"It's a brand new day, daughter," he said lovingly. "It's not fair to handicap it at the start with a frown."

"I have troubles of my own," said Theodore gloomily, as they jogged off to school together. "I've worked three Saturdays at Brown's, beside Decoration day, and though I haven't drawn a cent of the money, there is only forty cents coming to me."

Miss Billy stopped short, and her books fell to the ground.

"I'd like to know what kind of arithmetic you call that!" she said, staring.

"It's an example in profit and loss, and mainly loss," said Theodore grimly. "Don't breathe it, Sis,—but treats have done it."

"Treats!" echoed Miss Billy. "You don't mean to say you have spent three dollars and sixty cents in treats, in that length of time!"

"It's awful when you come to look it squarely in the face," acknowledged Theodore. "But the girls come in,—and they expect it,—and what is a fellow to do?"

"It's horrid of them, anyhow! And I'll cut their acquaintance,—every one of them,—when I find out who they are!"

"You'll do nothing of the kind," said Theodore haughtily. "I'll fight my own battles, if you please."

"Three dollars and sixty cents! If I had it in plants!" upbraided Miss Billy.

"Three dollars and sixty cents! If I had it in shoes!" mourned Theodore.

The wrinkles disappeared from between Miss Billy's eyes and she laughed outright. "It's funny, anyhow," she declared. "And you're in an awful position. I don't see how you are going to wriggle out of it now. The girls have such confidence in you by this time,—and Brown's sodas are the best in town, if they do come high."

Theodore whistled through his closed teeth. "Laugh away, Miss Billy. Add every grain of discomfort you can. But I'll wriggle out of it sooner than you think. The one thing that worries me is the fear that I'll have to put my hand down into father's pocket for my new shoes—for that's what it amounts to. Of course I can pay him back in a few weeks, but I hate to ask him for it just now."

"I'll lend you my Christmas gold piece,—I'd love to, Ted."

"Well, I should say not. I haven't come to the place yet where I borrow from girls. And these shoes will be sandals before I borrow from father, either. But you're a good fellow, Miss Billy."

Miss Billy's face beamed, and she gave her brother's arm an affectionate squeeze as they parted at the school door. "Every dark cloud has a silver lining," she whispered comfortingly.

"I wish my pocket had," responded Theodore gloomily. "Good-bye. Look out you don't flunk in your Latin to-day."

The rain that had threatened all day held off, and Miss Billy hurried home at four o'clock to plant her geraniums. Beatrice, looking very cool and pretty in a blue dimity gown, stopped her in the hall and drew her into the dining room.

"I'm glad you've come," she whispered. "The Blanchard girls are in the parlour making a farewell call before leaving for Europe. I want you to go in and entertain them while I get the Apollinaris water out of the refrigerator for a pine-apple frappé. Be nice and polite, dear, and shake hands with them. And do be careful what you say. Don't tell them how many rooms there are in the house, or how much rent we pay, or hint at economy in any way. Run along now,—there's a good sister."

"I can't," objected Miss Billy. "I don't like those Blanchard girls, and I have to set my plants out."

"Oh, please," begged Beatrice. "You must. They'll see everything if they are left so long alone. Tuck your hair-pins in and hurry along,—there's a dear."

Very reluctantly Miss Billy made her way to the parlour. There was a rustle of silk skirts as the Blanchard girls rose to greet her. "How do you do?" said Miss Billy, in her best manner, making her voice and outstretched hand as cordial as possible.

"So glad to find you in," drawled Miss Maude, with a shade of condescension in her manner. "We rode miles trying to find the place,—we had forgotten your address, you know,—and when we did find it,—what do you suppose?—it is the strangest coincidence,—why, Casey, our coachman, don't you know, moved out of this very house in April."

"Well now, maybe that wasn't malice," thought Miss Billy hotly. "But I promised Beatrice, so I'll go right on making myself amiable." "Yes?" she said aloud coolly. "Mrs. Canary has told me a great deal about the Caseys, but of course I never thought of connecting them with your John Casey. Indeed we've been so busy getting settled—that sounds like coffee grounds, doesn't it?—and we've had so many of our friends dropping in on us daily, that we haven't had time to think at all."

"Have you heard," lisped Miss Blanche, "that the Van Courtlands are intending to join their daughter in Cologne, next month? We did so wish we might sail with them, but Mr. Van Courtland thought we had better not defer our plans, as his time was so uncertain. Have they called lately?"

"Well, I can't truthfully say they called, for Mrs. Van Courtland brought a gingham apron with her when she came and helped mother arrange the silver and china, and Mr. Van Courtland spaded half my flower-beds for me. He used to be a farmer, you know, before he was a banker."

The young ladies of fashion exchanged glances of surprise. When Miss Maude spoke again there was trace of warmth in her manner.

"You are quite cosily situated here; are you at all lonesome for the old home in Ashurst Place?"

"Well," said Miss Billy frankly, "I miss the bath-tub most awfully," and the next moment could have bitten out her tongue. "That's the first glaring indiscretion," she thought despairingly, "and there'll be more if Beatrice doesn't hurry with that frappé."

Miss Blanche smiled encouragingly. "Do you know," she confided, "father thinks it was a great mistake, your moving here. He says he thinks your father's position as rector of St. John's demanded an entirely different course. Father says there are at least a dozen men in the church that would have tided your affairs over. But ministers are seldom good business men, and I suppose your father is no exception to the rule. How does your dear mother bear up under it?"

"Under what?" asked Miss Billy. "You mean moving to Cherry Street? Oh, mother is brave. She's like the young lady of Norway: