Billy came down-stairs on the thirteenth of December to find everywhere the flatness that always follows a day which for weeks has been the focus of one's aims and thoughts and .  
“It's just as if everything had stopped at Marie's wedding, and there wasn't anything more to do,” she complained to Aunt Hannah at the breakfast table. “Everything seems so—queer!”
 
“It won't—long, dear,” smiled Aunt Hannah, , as she buttered her roll, “ after Bertram comes back. How long does he stay in New York?”
 
“Only three days; but I'm just sure it's going to seem three weeks, now,” sighed Billy. “But he simply had to go—else he wouldn't have gone.”
 
“I've no doubt of it,” observed Aunt Hannah. And at the meaning emphasis of her words, Billy laughed a little. After a minute she said aggrievedly:
 
“I had supposed that I could at least have a sort of 'after the ball' celebration this morning picking up and straightening things around. But John and Rosa have done it all. There isn't so much as a rose leaf anywhere on the floor. Of course most of the flowers went to the hospital last night, anyway. As for Marie's room—it looks as spick-and-span as if it had never seen a of ribbon or an inch of tulle.”
 
“But—the wedding presents?”
 
“All carried down to the kitchen and half packed now, ready to go over to the new home. John says he'll take them over in Peggy this afternoon, after he takes Mrs. Hartwell's trunk to Uncle William's.”
 
“Well, you can at least go over to the apartment and work,” suggested Aunt Hannah, hopefully.
 
“Humph! Can I?” Billy. “As if I could—when Marie left strict orders that not one thing was to be touched till she got here. They arranged everything but the presents before the wedding, anyway; and Marie wants to fix those herself after she gets back. Mercy! Aunt Hannah, if I should so much as move a plate one inch in the china closet, Marie would know it—and change it when she got home,” laughed Billy, as she rose from the table. “No, I can't go to work over there.”
 
“But there's your music, my dear. You said you were going to write some new songs after the wedding.”
 
“I was,” sighed Billy, walking to the window, and looking listlessly at the bare, brown world outside; “but I can't write songs—when there aren't any songs in my head to write.”
 
“No, of course not; but they'll come, dear, in time. You're tired, now,” Aunt Hannah, as she turned to leave the room.
 
“It's the reaction, of course,” murmured Aunt Hannah to herself, on the way up-stairs. “She's had the whole thing on her hands—dear child!”
 
A few minutes later, from the living-room, came a little melody. Billy was at the piano.
 
Kate and little Kate had, the night before, gone home with William. It had been a sudden decision, brought about by the that Bertram's trip to New York would leave William alone. Her trunk was to be carried there to-day, and she would leave for home from there, at the end of a two or three days' visit.
 
It began to snow at twelve o'clock. All the morning the sky had been gray and threatening; and the threats took visible shape at noon in of white snow feathers that filled the air to the blinding point, and turned the brown, bare world into a thing of fairylike beauty. Billy, however, with a rare frown upon her face, looked out upon it with eyes.
 
“I was going in town—and I believe I'll go now,” she cried.
 
“Don't, dear, please don't,” begged Aunt Hannah. “See, the are smaller now, and the wind is coming up. We're in for a blizzard—I'm sure we are. And you know you have some cold, already.”
 
“All right,” sighed Billy. “Then it's me for the knitting work and the fire, I suppose,” she finished, with a whimsicality that did not hide the wistful disappointment of her voice.
 
She was not knitting, however, she was sewing with Aunt Hannah when at four o'clock Rosa brought in the card.
 
Billy glanced at the name, then sprang to her feet with a glad little cry.
 
“It's Mary Jane!” she exclaimed, as Rosa disappeared. “Now wasn't he a dear to think to come to-day? You'll be down, won't you?”
 
Aunt Hannah smiled even while she frowned.
 
“Oh, Billy!” she . “Yes, I'll come down, of course, a little later, and I'm glad Mr. Arkwright came,” she said with reproving emphasis.
 
Billy laughed and threw a glance over her shoulder.
 
“All right,” she nodded. “I'll go and tell Mr. Arkwright you'll be down directly.”
 
In the living-room Billy greeted her visitor with a cordial hand.
 
“How did you know, Mr. Arkwright, that I was feeling specially restless and lonesome to-day?” she demanded.
 
A glad light sprang to the man's dark eyes.
 
“I didn't know it,” he rejoined. “I only knew that I was specially restless and lonesome myself.”
 
Arkwright's voice was not quite steady. The unmistakable in the girl's words and manner had sent a quick of joy to his heart. Her evident delight in his coming had filled him with . He could not know that it was only the chill of the snowstorm that had given warmth to her handclasp, the of the day that had made her greeting so cordial, the loneliness of a whose lover is away that had made his presence so welcome.
 
“Well, I'm glad you came, anyway,” sighed Billy, ; “though I suppose I ought to be sorry that you were lonesome—but I'm afraid I'm not, for now you'll know just how I felt, so you won't mind if I'm a little wild and . You see, the tension has snapped,” she added laughingly, as she seated herself.
 
“Tension?”
 
“The wedding, you know. For so many weeks we've been seeing just December twelfth, that we'd forgotten all about the thirteenth that came after it; so when I got up this morning I felt just as you do when the clock has stopped ticking. But it was a lovely wedding, Mr. Arkwright. I'm sorry you could not be here.”
 
“Thank you; so am I—though usually, I will confess, I'm not much good at attending 'functions' and meeting strangers. As perhaps you've guessed, Miss Neilson, I'm not particularly a society chap.”
 
“Of course you aren't! People who are doing things—real things—seldom are. But we aren't the society kind ourselves, you know—not the capital S kind. We like , which is vastly different from Society. Oh, we have friends, to be sure, who dote on 'pink teas and purple pageants,' as Cyril calls them; and we even go ourselves sometimes. But if you had been here yesterday, Mr. Arkwright, you'd have met lots like yourself, men and women who are doing things: singing, playing, painting, , writing. Why, we even had a poet, sir—only he didn't have long hair, so he didn't look the part a bit,” she finished laughingly.
 
“Is long hair—necessary—for poets?” Arkwright's smile was quizzical.
 
“Dear me, no; not now. But it used to be, didn't it? And for painters, too. But now they look just like—folks.”
 
Arkwright laughed.
 
“It isn't possible that you are sighing for the coats and flowing ties of the past, is it, Miss Neilson?”
 
“I'm afraid it is,” dimpled Billy. “I love velvet coats and flowing ties!”
 
“May singers wear them? I shall don them at once, anyhow, at a venture,” declared the man, .
 
Billy smiled and shook her head.
 
“I don't think you will. You all like your fuzzy tweeds and worsteds too well!”
 
“You speak with feeling. One would almost suspect that you already had tried to bring about a reform—and failed. Perhaps Mr. Cyril, now, or Mr. Bertram—” Arkwright stopped with a whimsical smile.
 
Billy flushed a little. As it happened, she had, indeed, had a merry with Bertram on that very subject, and he had laughingly promised that his wedding present to her would be a velvet house coat for himself. It was on the point of Billy's tongue now to say this to Arkwright; but another glance at the provoking smile on his lips drove the words back in angry confusion. For the second time, in the presence of this man, Billy found ............