“Anyhow, things came to a head last spring, Billy broke the engagement and fled to parts unknown with Aunt Hannah, leaving Bertram here in Boston to alternate between stony despair and reckless gayety, according to William; and it was while he was in the latter mood that he had that awful automobile accident and broke his arm--and almost his neck. He was wildly delirious, and called continually for Billy. “Well, it seems Billy didn't know all this; but a week ago she came home, and in some way found out about it, I think through Pete--William's old butler, you know. Just exactly what happened I can't say, but I do know that she dragged poor old Aunt Hannah down to Bertram's at some unearthly hour, and in the rain; and Aunt Hannah couldn't do a thing with her. All Billy would say, was, 'Bertram wants me.' And Aunt Hannah told me that if I could have seen Billy's face I'd have known that she'd have gone to Bertram then if he'd been at the top of the Himalaya Mountains, or at the bottom of the China Sea. So perhaps it's just as well--for Aunt Hannah's sake, at least--that he was in no worse place than on his own couch at home. Anyhow, she went, and in half an hour they blandly informed Aunt Hannah that they were going to be married to-day. “Aunt Hannah said she tried to stop that, and get them to put it off till October (the original date, you know), but Bertram was obdurate. And when he declared he'd marry her the next day if it wasn't for the new license law, Aunt Hannah said she gave up for fear he'd get a special dispensation, or go to the Governor or the President, or do some other dreadful thing. (What a funny old soul Aunt Hannah is!) Bertram told _me_ that he should never feel safe till Billy was really his; that she'd read something, or hear something, or think something, or get a letter from me (as if anything _I_ could say would do any good-or harm!), and so break the engagement again. “Well, she's his now, so I suppose he's satisfied; though, for my part, I haven't changed my mind at all. I still say that they are not one bit suited to each other, and that matrimony will simply ruin his career. Bertram never has loved and never will love any girl long--except to paint. But if he simply _would_ get married, why couldn't he have taken a nice, sensible domestic girl that would have kept him fed and mended? “Not but that I'm very fond of Billy, as you know, dear; but imagine Billy as a wife--worse yet, a mother! Billy's a dear girl, but she knows about as much of real life and its problems as--as our little Kate. A more impulsive, irresponsible, regardless-of-consequences young woman I never saw. She can play divinely, and write delightful songs, I'll acknowledge; but what is that when a man is hungry, or has lost a button?