Miss Billy

Billy Neilson was eighteen years old when the aunt, who had brought her up from babyhood, died. Miss Benton's death left Billy quite alone in the world—alone, and peculiarly forlorn. To Mr. James Harding, of Harding & Harding, who had charge of Billy's not inconsiderable property, the girl poured out her heart in all its loneliness two days after the funeral.
“You see, Mr. Harding, there isn't any one—not any one who—cares,” she choked.
“Tut, tut, my child, it's not so bad as that, surely,” remonstrated the old man, gently. “Why, I—I care.”
Billy smiled through tear-wet eyes.
“But I can't LIVE with you,” she said.
“I'm not so sure of that, either,” retorted the man. “I'm thinking that Letty and Ann would LIKE to have you with us.”
The girl laughed now outright. She was thinking of Miss Letty, who had “nerves,” and of Miss Ann, who had a “heart”; and she pictured her own young, breezy, healthy self attempting to conform to the hushed and shaded thing that life was, within Lawyer Harding's home.
“Thank you, but I'm sure they wouldn't,” she objected. “You don't know how noisy I am.”
The lawyer stirred restlessly and pondered.
“But, surely, my dear, isn't there some relative, somewhere?” he demanded. “How about your mother's people?”
Billy shook her head. Her eyes filled again with tears.
“There was only Aunt Ella, ever, that I knew anything about. She and mother were the only children there were, and mother died when I was a year old, you know.”