William wrote to Billy that night.
“My dear:—” he said in part. “I hope you'll come home right away. We want to see SOMETHING of you before you go away again, and you know the schools will be opening soon.
“By the way, it has just occurred to me as I write that perhaps, after all, you won't have to go quite away. There are plenty of good schools for young ladies right in and near Boston, which I am sure you could attend, and still live at home. Suppose you come back then as soon as you can, and we'll talk it up. And that reminds me, I wonder how Spunk will get along with Spunkie. Spunkie has been boarding out all August at a cat home, but he seems glad to get back to us. I am anxious to see the two little chaps together, just to find out how much alike they really do look.”
Very promptly came Billy's answer; but William's face, after he had read the letter, was almost as blank as it had been on that April day when Billy's first letter came—though this time for a far different reason.
“Why, boys, she—isn't—coming,” he announced in dismay.
“Isn't coming!” ejaculated two astonished Voices.
“No.”
“Not—at—ALL?”
“Why, of course, later,” retorted William, with unwonted sharpness. “But not now. This is what she says.” And he read aloud:
“DEAR UNCLE WILLIAM:—You poor dear man! Did you think I'd really let you spend your time and your thought over hunting up a school for me, after all the rest you have done for me? Not a bit of it! Why, Aunt Hannah and I have been buried under school catalogues all summer, and I have studied them all until I know just which has turkey dinners on Sundays, and which ice cream at least twice a week. And it's all settled, too, long ago. I'm going to a girls' school up the Hudson a little way—a lovely place, I'm sure, from the pictures of it.