Miss Billy | Page 5

red of face, and plainly
distressed.
"My dear child, I--I'm sorry, but--but I'll have to take back that
invitation," he blurted out miserably. "My sisters are--are not well this
afternoon. Ann has been having a turn with her heart-- you know Ann's
heart is--is bad; and Letty--Letty is always nervous at such times--very
nervous. Er--I'm so sorry! But you'll--excuse it?"
"Indeed I will," smiled Billy, "and thank you just the same; only"-- her
eyes twinkled mischievously--"you don't mind if I do say that it IS
lucky that we hadn't gone on planning to have me live with them, Mr.
Harding!"
"Eh? Well--er, I think your plan about the Henshaws is very good," he
interposed hurriedly. "I'll speak to Ned--I'll speak to Ned," he finished,
as he ceremoniously bowed the girl from the office.
James Harding kept his word, and spoke to his son that night; but there
was little, after all, that Ned could tell him. Yes, he remembered Billy
Henshaw well, but he had not heard of him for years, since Henshaw's
marriage, in fact. He must be forty years old, Ned said; but he was a
fine fellow, an exceptionally fine fellow, and would be sure to deal
kindly and wisely by his little orphan namesake; of that Ned was very
sure.
"That's good. I'll write him," declared Mr. James Harding. "I'll write
him tomorrow."
He did write--but not so soon as Billy wrote; for even as he spoke,
Billy, in her lonely little room at the other end of the town, was laying

bare all her homesickness in four long pages to "Dear Uncle William."

CHAPTER II
"THE STRATA"
Bertram Henshaw called the Beacon Street home "The Strata." This
annoyed Cyril, and even William, not a little; though they reflected that,
after all, it was "only Bertram." For the whole of Bertram's twenty-four
years of life it had been like this--"It's only Bertram," had been at once
the curse and the salvation of his existence.
In this particular case, however, Bertram's vagary of fancy had some
excuse. The Beacon Street house, the home of the three brothers, was a
"Strata."
"You see, it's like this," Bertram would explain airily to some new
acquaintance who expressed surprise at the name; "if I could slice off
the front of the house like a loaf of cake, you'd understand it better. But
just suppose that old Bunker Hill should suddenly spout fire and
brimstone and bury us under tons of ashes--only fancy the condition of
mind of those future archaeologists when they struck our house after
their months of digging!
"What would they find? Listen. First: stratum number one, the top floor;
that's Cyril's, you know. They'd note the bare floors, the sparse but
heavy furniture, the piano, the violin, the flute, the book-lined walls,
and the absence of every sort of curtain, cushion, or knickknack. 'Here
lived a plain man,' they'd say; 'a scholar, a musician, stern, unloved and
unloving; a monk.'
"And what next? They'd strike William's stratum next, the third floor.
Imagine it! You know William as a State Street broker, well-off, a
widower, tall, angular, slow of speech, a little bald, very much
nearsighted, and the owner of the kindest heart in the world. But really
to know William, you must know his rooms. William collects things.
He has always collected things--and he's saved every one of them.

There's a tradition that at the age of one year he crept into the house
with four small round white stones. Anyhow, if he did, he's got them
now. Rest assured of that--and he's forty this year. Miniatures, carved
ivories, bugs, moths, porcelains, jades, stamps, postcards, spoons,
baggage tags, theatre programs, playing-cards--there isn't anything that
he doesn't collect. He's on teapots, now. Imagine it--William and
teapots! And they're all there in his rooms--one glorious mass of
confusion. Just fancy those archaeologists trying to make their 'monk'
live there!
"But when they reach me, my stratum, they'll have a worse time yet.
You see, I like cushions and comfort, and I have them everywhere. And
I like--well, I like lots of things. My rooms don't belong to that monk,
not a little bit. And so you see," Bertram would finish merrily, "that's
why I call it all 'The Strata.'"
And "The Strata" it was to all the Henshaws' friends, and even to
William and Cyril themselves, in spite of their objection to the term.
From babyhood the Henshaw boys had lived in the handsome, roomy
house, facing the Public Garden. It had been their father's boyhood
home, as well, and he and his wife had died there, soon after Kate, the
only daughter, had married. At the age of twenty- two, William
Henshaw, the eldest son, had brought his bride to the house, and
together they had striven to make