"Billy, stand just as you are," he was saying. "Don't move. Jove! But that effect is perfect with those dark shadows beyond, and just your hair and face and throat showing. I declare, I've half a mind to sketch--" But Billy, with a little cry, was gone.

CHAPTER X

A JOB FOR PETE--AND FOR BERTRAM

The early days in December were busy ones, certainly, in the little house on Corey Hill. Marie was to be married the twelfth. It was to be a home wedding, and a very simple one--according to Billy, and according to what Marie had said it was to be. Billy still serenely spoke of it as a "simple affair," but Marie was beginning to be fearful. As the days pa.s.sed, bringing with them more and more frequent evidences either tangible or intangible of orders to stationers, caterers, and florists, her fears found voice in a protest.

"But Billy, it was to be a _simple_ wedding," she cried.

"And so it is."

"But what is this I hear about a breakfast?"

Billy's chin a.s.sumed its most stubborn squareness.

"I don't know, I'm sure, what you did hear," she retorted calmly.

"Billy!"

Billy laughed. The chin was just as stubborn, but the smiling lips above it graced it with an air of charming concession.

"There, there, dear," coaxed the mistress of Hillside, "don't fret.

Besides, I'm sure I should think you, of all people, would want your guests _fed!_"

"But this is so elaborate, from what I hear."

"Nonsense! Not a bit of it."

"Rosa says there'll be salads and cakes and ices--and I don't know what all."

Billy looked concerned.

"Well, of course, Marie, if you'd _rather_ have oatmeal and doughnuts,"

she began with kind solicitude; but she got no farther.

"Billy!" besought the bride elect. "Won't you be serious? And there's the cake in wedding boxes, too."

"I know, but boxes are so much easier and cleaner than--just fingers,"

apologized an anxiously serious voice.

Marie answered with an indignant, grieved glance and hurried on.

"And the flowers--roses, dozens of them, in December! Billy, I can't let you do all this for me."

"Nonsense, dear!" laughed Billy. "Why, I love to do it. Besides, when you're gone, just think how lonesome I'll be! I shall have to adopt somebody else then--now that Mary Jane has proved to be nothing but a disappointing man instead of a nice little girl like you," she finished whimsically.

Marie did not smile. The frown still lay between her delicate brows.

"And for my trousseau--there were so many things that you simply would buy!"

"I didn't get one of the egg-beaters," Billy reminded her anxiously.

Marie smiled now, but she shook her head, too.

"Billy, I cannot have you do all this for me."

"Why not?"

At the unexpectedly direct question, Marie fell back a little.

"Why, because I--I can't," she stammered. "I can't get them for myself, and--and--"

"Don't you love me?"

A pink flush stole to Marie's face.

"Indeed I do, dearly."

"Don't I love you?"

The flush deepened.

"I--I hope so."

"Then why won't you let me do what I want to, and be happy in it? Money, just money, isn't any good unless you can exchange it for something you want. And just now I want pink roses and ice cream and lace flounces for you. Marie,"--Billy's voice trembled a little--"I never had a sister till I had you, and I have had such a good time buying things that I thought you wanted! But, of course, if you don't want them--" The words ended in a choking sob, and down went Billy's head into her folded arms on the desk before her.

Marie sprang to her feet and cuddled the bowed head in a loving embrace.

"But I do want them, dear; I want them all--every single one," she urged. "Now promise me--promise me that you'll do them all, just as you'd planned! You will, won't you?"

There was the briefest of hesitations, then came the m.u.f.fled reply:

"Yes--if you really want them."

"I do, dear--indeed I do. I love pretty weddings, and I--I always hoped that I could have one--if I ever married. So you must know, dear, how I really do want all those things," declared Marie, fervently. "And now I must go. I promised to meet Cyril at Park Street at three o'clock."

And she hurried from the room--and not until she was half-way to her destination did it suddenly occur to her that she had been urging, actually urging Miss Billy Neilson to buy for her pink roses, ice cream, and lace flounces.

Her cheeks burned with shame then. But almost at once she smiled.

"Now wasn't that just like Billy?" she was saying to herself, with a tender glow in her eyes.

It was early in December that Pete came one day with a package for Marie from Cyril. Marie was not at home, and Billy herself went downstairs to take the package from the old man's hands.

"Mr. Cyril said to give it to Miss Hawthorn," stammered the old servant, his face lighting up as Billy entered the room; "but I'm sure he wouldn't mind _your_ taking it."