Kate and little Kate left for the West on the afternoon of the fifteenth, and Bertram arrived from New York that evening. Notwithstanding the confusion of all this, Billy still had time to give some thought to her experience of the morning with Uncle William. The forlorn little room with its poverty-stricken furnishings and its crippled mistress was very vivid in Billy's memory. Equally vivid were the flashing eyes of Alice Greggory as she had opened the door at the last.  
“For,” as Billy explained to Bertram that evening, after she had told him the story of the morning's adventure, “you see, dear, I had never been really turned out of a house before!”
 
“I should think not,” her lover, indignantly; “and it's safe to say you never will again. The impertinence of it! But then, you won't see them any more, sweetheart, so we'll just forget it.”
 
“Forget it! Why, Bertram, I couldn't! You couldn't, if you'd been there. Besides, of course I shall see them again!”
 
Bertram's dropped.
 
“Why, Billy, you don't mean that Will, or you either, would try again for that teapot!”
 
“Of course not,” flashed Billy, heatedly. “It isn't the teapot—it's that dear little Mrs. Greggory. Why, dearie, you don't know how poor they are! Everything in sight is so old and thin and worn it's enough to break your heart. The rug isn't anything but darns, nor the , either—except patches. It's awful, Bertram!”
 
“I know, darling; but you don't expect to buy them new rugs and new , do you?”
 
Billy gave one of her unexpected laughs.
 
“Mercy!” she . “Only picture Miss Alice's face if I should try to buy them rugs and tablecloths! No, dear,” she went on more seriously, “I sha'n't do that, of course—though I'd like to; but I shall try to see Mrs. Greggory again, if it's nothing more than a rose or a book or a new magazine that I can take to her.”
 
“Or a smile—which I fancy will be the best gift of the lot,” Bertram, fondly.
 
Billy dimpled and shook her head.
 
“Smiles—my smiles—are not so valuable, I'm afraid—except to you, perhaps,” she laughed.
 
“Self-evident facts need no proving,” retorted Bertram. “Well, and what else has happened in all these ages I've been away?”
 
Billy brought her hands together with a sudden cry.
 
“Oh, and I haven't told you!” she exclaimed. “I'm writing a new song—a love song. Mary Jane wrote the words. They're beautiful.”
 
Bertram .
 
“Indeed! And is—Mary Jane a poet, with all the rest?” he asked, with lightness.
 
“Oh, no, of course not,” smiled Billy; “but these words are pretty. And they just sang themselves into the dearest little melody right away. So I'm writing the music for them.”
 
“Lucky Mary Jane!” murmured Bertram, still with a lightness that he hoped would pass for . (Bertram was ashamed of himself, but deep within him was a growing consciousness that he knew the meaning of the vague that he always felt at the mention of Arkwright's name.) “And will the title-page say, 'Words by Mary Jane Arkwright'?” he finished.
 
“That's what I asked him,” laughed Billy.
 
“I even suggested 'Methuselah John' for a chang............