“You don't mean Billy--Neilson?” The other turned sharply. “Do _you_ know Billy Neilson?” Calderwell gave his friend a glance from scornful eyes. “Do I know Billy Neilson?” he cried. “Does a fellow usually know the girl he's proposed to regularly once in three months? Oh, I know I'm telling tales out of school, of course,” he went on, in response to the look that had come into the brown eyes opposite. “But what's the use? Everybody knows it--that knows us. Billy herself got so she took it as a matter of course--and refused as a matter of course, too; just as she would refuse a serving of apple pie at dinner, if she hadn't wanted it.” “Apple pie!” scouted Arkwright. Calderwell shrugged his shoulders. “My dear fellow, you don't seem to realize it, but for the last six months you have been assisting at the obsequies of a dead romance.” “Indeed! And is it--buried, yet?” “Oh, no,” sighed Calderwell, cheerfully. “I shall go back one of these days, I'll warrant, and begin the same old game again; though I will acknowledge that the last refusal was so very decided that it's been a year, almost, since I received it. I think I was really convinced, for a while, that--that she didn't want that apple pie,” he finished with a whimsical lightness that did not quite coincide with the stern lines that had come to his mouth. For a moment there was silence, then Calderwell spoke again. “Where did you know--Miss Billy?” “Oh, I don't know her at all. I know of her--through Aunt Hannah.” Calderwell sat suddenly erect. “Aunt Hannah! Is she your aunt, too? Jove! This _is_ a little old world, after all; isn't it?” “She isn't my aunt. She's my mother's third cousin. None of us have seen her for years, but she writes to mother occasionally; and, of course, for some time now, her letters have been running over full of Billy. She lives with her, I believe; doesn't she?” “She does,” rejoined Calderwell, with an unexpected chuckle. “I wonder if you know how she happened to live with her, at first.” “Why, no, I reckon not. What do you mean?” Calderwell chuckled again. “Well, I'll tell you. You, being a 'Mary Jane,' ought to appreciate it. You see, Billy was named for one William Henshaw, her father's chum, who promptly forgot all about her. At eighteen, Billy, being left quite alone in the world, wrote to 'Uncle William' and asked to come and live with him.” “Well?” “But it wasn't well. William was a forty-year-old widower who lived with two younger brothers, an old butler, and a Chinese cook in one of those funny old Beacon Street houses in Boston. 'The Strata,' Bertram called it. Bright boy--Bertram!” “The Strata!”