On the fourteenth of December Billy came down-stairs alert, interested, and happy. She had received a dear letter from Bertram (mailed on the way to New York), the sun was shining, and her fingers were fairly to put on paper the little melody that was now surging through her brain. Emphatically, the restlessness of the day before was gone now. Once more Billy's “clock” had “begun to tick.”  
After breakfast Billy went straight to the telephone and called up Arkwright. Even one side of the conversation Aunt Hannah did not hear very clearly; but in five minutes a radiant-faced Billy danced into the room.
 
“Aunt Hannah, just listen! Only think—Mary Jane wrote the words himself, so of course I can use them!”
 
“Billy, dear, can't you say 'Mr. Arkwright'?” pleaded Aunt Hannah.
 
Billy laughed and gave the anxious-eyed little old lady an hug.
 
“Of course! I'll say 'His ' if you like, dear,” she . “But did you hear—did you realize? They're his own words, so there's no question of rights or permission, or anything. And he's coming up this afternoon to hear my melody, and to make a few little changes in the words, maybe. Oh, Aunt Hannah, you don't know how good it seems to get into my music again!”
 
“Yes, yes, dear, of course; but—” Aunt Hannah's sentence ended in a troubled pause.
 
Billy turned in surprise.
 
“Why, Aunt Hannah, aren't you glad? You said you'd be glad!”
 
“Yes, dear; and I am—very glad. It's only—if it doesn't take too much time—and if Bertram doesn't mind.”
 
Billy flushed. She laughed a little bitterly.
 
“No, it won't take too much time, I fancy, and—so far as Bertram is concerned—if what Sister Kate says is true, Aunt Hannah, he'll be glad to have me occupy a little of my time with something besides himself.”
 
“Fiddlededee!” Aunt Hannah.
 
“What did she mean by that?”
 
Billy smiled ruefully.
 
“Well, probably I did need it. She said it night before last just before she went home with Uncle William. She declared that I seemed to forget that Bertram belonged to his Art first, before he belonged to me; and that it was exactly as she had supposed it would be—a perfect for Bertram to think of marrying anybody.”
 
“Fiddlededee!” ejaculated the Aunt Hannah, even more sharply. “I hope you have too much good sense to mind what Kate says, Billy.”
 
“Yes, I know,” sighed the girl; “but of course I can see some things for myself, and I suppose I did make—a little fuss about his going to New York the other night. And I will own that I've had a real struggle with myself sometimes, lately, not to mind—his giving so much time to his portrait painting. And of course both of those are very reprehensible—in an artist's wife,” she finished, a little tremulously.
 
“Humph! Well, I don't think I should worry about that,” observed Aunt Hannah with grim positiveness.
 
“No, I don't mean to,” smiled Billy, wistfully. “I only told you so you'd understand that it was just as well if I did have something to take up my mind—besides Bertram. And of course music would be the most natural thing.”
 
“Yes, of course,” agreed Aunt Hannah.
 
“And it seems actually almost providential that Mary—I mean Mr. Arkwright is here to help me, now that Cyril is gone,” went on Billy, still a little wistfully.
 
“Yes, of course. He isn't like—a stranger,” murmured Aunt Hannah. Aunt Hannah's voice sounded as if she were trying to convince herself—of something.
 
“No, indeed! He seems just like one of the family to me, almost as if he were really—your niece, Mary Jane,” laughed Billy.
 
Aunt Hannah moved restlessly.
 
“Billy,” she hazarded, “he knows, of course, of your engagement?”
 
“Why, of course he does, Aunt Hannah everybody does!” Billy's eyes were plainly surprised.
 
“Yes, yes, of course—he must,” Aunt Hannah, confusedly, hoping that Billy would not divine the hidden reason behind her question. She was relieved when Billy's next words showed that she had not divined it.
 
“I told you, didn't I? He's coming up this afternoon. He can't get here till five, though; but he's so interested! He's about as crazy over the thing as I am. And it's going to be fine, Aunt Hannah, when it's done. You just wait and see!” she finished gayly, as she tripped from the room.
 
Left to herself, Aunt Hannah drew a long breath.
 
“I'm glad she didn't suspect,” she was thinking. “I believe she'd consider even the question disloyal to Bertram—de............