``Hm-m; as usual Sister Kate forgot it wasn't her funeral--I mean, her wedding,'' retorted Cyril, dryly. ``Kate is never happy, you know, unless she's managing things.''
``Yes, I know,'' nodded Marie, with a frowning smile of recollection at certain features of her own wedding.
``She doesn't approve of Billy's taste in guests, either,'' remarked Cyril, after a moment's silence.
``I thought her guests were lovely,'' spoke up Marie, in quick defense. ``Of course, most of her social friends are away--in July; but Billy is never a society girl, you know, in spite of the way Society is always trying to lionize her and Bertram.''
``Oh, of course Kate knows that; but she says it seems as if Billy needn't have gone out and gathered in the lame and the halt and the blind.''
``Nonsense!'' cried Marie, with unusual sharpness for her. ``I suppose she said that just because of Mrs. Greggory's and Tommy Dunn's crutches.''
``Well, they didn't make a real festive-looking wedding party, you must admit,'' laughed Cyril;``what with the bridegroom's own arm in a sling, too! But who were they all, anyway?''
``Why, you knew Mrs. Greggory and Alice, of course--and Pete,'' smiled Marie. ``And wasn't Pete happy? Billy says she'd have had Pete if she had no one else; that there wouldn't have been any wedding, anyway, if it hadn't been for his telephoning Aunt Hannah that night.''
``Yes; Will told me.''
``As for Tommy and the others--most of them were those people that Billy had at her home last summer for a two weeks' vacation--people, you know, too poor to give themselves one, and too proud to accept one from ordinary charity. Billy's been following them up and doing little things for them ever since--sugarplums and frosting on their cake, she calls it; and they adore her, of course. I think it was lovely of her to have them, and they did have such a good time! You should have seen Tommy when you played that wedding march for Billy to enter the room. His poor little face was so transfigured with joy that I almost cried, just to look at him.
Billy says he loves music--poor little fellow!''
``Well, I hope they'll be happy, in spite of Kate's doleful prophecies. Certainly they looked happy enough to-day,'' declared Cyril, patting a yawn as he rose to his feet. ``I fancy Will and Aunt Hannah are lonesome, though, about now,''
he added.
``Yes,'' smiled Marie, mistily, as she gathered up her work. ``I know what Aunt Hannah's doing. She's helping Rosa put the house to rights, and she's stopping to cry over every slipper and handkerchief of Billy's she finds. And she'll do that until that funny clock of hers strikes twelve, then she'll say `Oh, my grief and conscience--midnight!' But the next minute she'll remember that it's only half-past eleven, after all, and she'll send Rosa to bed and sit patting Billy's slipper in her lap till it really is midnight by all the other clocks.''
Cyril laughed appreciatively.
``Well, I know what Will is doing,'' he declared.
``Will is in Bertram's den dozing before the fireplace with Spunkie curled up in his lap.''
As it happened, both these surmises were not far from right. In the Strata, the Henshaws' old Beacon Street home, William was sitting before the fireplace with the cat in his lap, but he was not dozing. He was talking.
``Spunkie,'' he was saying, ``your master, Bertram, got married to-day--and to Miss Billy. He'll be bringing her home one of these days--your new mistress. And such a mistress!
Never did cat or house have a better!
``Just think; for the first time in years this old place is to know the touch of a woman's hand --and that's what it hasn't known for almost twenty years, except for those few short months six years ago when a dark-eyed girl and a little gray kitten (that was Spunk, your predecessor, you know) blew in and blew out again before we scarcely knew they were here. That girl was Miss Billy, and she was a dear then, just as she is now, only now she's coming here to stay. She's coming home, Spunkie; and she'll make it a home for you, for me, and for all of us. Up to now, you know, it hasn't really been a home, for years--just us men, so. It'll be very different, Spunkie, as you'll soon find out. Now mind, madam! We must show that we appreciate all this: no tempers, no tantrums, no showing of claws, no leaving our coats--either yours or mine--on the drawing-room chairs, no tracking in of mud on clean rugs and floors! For we're going to have a home, Spunkie--a home!''
At Hillside, Aunt Hannah was, indeed, helping Rosa to put the house to rights, as Marie had said. She was crying, too, over a glove she had found on Billy's piano; but she was crying over something else, also. Not only had she lost Billy, but she had lost her home.
To be sure, nothing had been said during that nightmare of a week of hurry and confusion about Aunt Hannah's future; but Aunt Hannah knew very well how it must be. This dear little house on the side of Corey Hill was Billy's home, and Billy would not need it any longer. It would be sold, of course; and she, Aunt Hannah, would go back to a ``second-story front'' and loneliness in some Back Bay boarding-house; and a second story front and loneliness would not be easy now, after these years of home--and Billy.
No wonder, indeed, that Aunt Hannah sat crying and patting the little white glove in her hand. No wonder, too, that--being Aunt Hannah--she reached for the shawl near by and put it on, shiveringly. Even July, to-night, was cold--to Aunt Hannah.
In yet another home that evening was the wedding of Billy Neilson and Bertram Henshaw uppermost in thought and speech. In a certain little South-End flat where, in two rented rooms, lived Alice Greggory and her crippled mother, Alice was talking to Mr. M. J. Arkwright, commonly known to his friends as ``Mary Jane,''
owing to the mystery in which he had for so long shrouded his name.
Arkwright to-night was plainly moody and ill at ease.
``You're not listening. You're not listening at all,'' complained Alice Greggory at last, reproachfully.
