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
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