“She will be here Thursday. Her train is due at the South Station at four-thirty. She seems to be very grateful to you for your offer to let her come right here for a month; but she says she's afraid you don't realize, perhaps, just what you are doing--to take her in like that, with her singing, and all.” “Nonsense! She doesn't refuse, does she?” “Oh, no; she doesn't refuse--but she doesn't accept either, exactly, as I can see. I've read the letter over twice, too. I'll let you judge for yourself by and by, when you have time to read it.” Billy laughed. “Never mind. I don't want to read it. She's just a little shy about coming, that's all. She'll stay all right, when we come to meet her. What time did you say it was, Thursday?” “Half past four, South Station.” “Thursday, at half past four. Let me see--that's the day of the Carletons' 'At Home,' isn't it?” “Oh, my grief and conscience, yes! But I had forgotten it. What shall we do?” “Oh, that will be easy. We'll just go to the Carletons' early and have John wait, then take us from there to the South Station. Meanwhile we'll make sure that the little blue room is all ready for her. I put in my white enamel work-basket yesterday, and that pretty little blue case for hairpins and curling tongs that I bought at the fair. I want the room to look homey to her, you know.” “As if it could look any other way, if _you_ had anything to do with it,” sighed Aunt Hannah, admiringly. Billy laughed. “If we get stranded we might ask the Henshaw boys to help us out, Aunt Hannah. They'd probably suggest guns and swords. That's the way they fixed up _my_ room.” Aunt Hannah raised shocked hands of protest. “As if we would! Mercy, what a time that was!” Billy laughed again. “I never shall forget, _never_, my first glimpse of that room when Mrs. Hartwell switched on the lights. Oh, Aunt Hannah, I wish you could have seen it before they took out those guns and spiders!” “As if I didn't see quite enough when I saw William's face that morning he came for me!” retorted Aunt Hannah, spiritedly. “Dear Uncle William! What an old saint he has been all the way through,” mused Billy aloud. “And Cyril--who would ever have believed that the day would come when Cyril would say to me, as he did last night, that he felt as if Marie had been gone a month. It's been just seven days, you know.” “I know. She comes to-morrow, doesn't she?”