When the next summer came there was still something other than America to claim her attention: the Calderwells had invited her to cruise with them for three months. Their yacht was a little floating palace of delight, Billy declared, not to mention the charm of the unknown lands and waters that she and Aunt Hannah would see.
Of all this Billy wrote to William—at occasional intervals—but she did not come home. Even when the next autumn came, there was still Paris to detain her for another long winter of study.
In the Henshaw house on Beacon Street, William mourned not a little as each recurring season brought no Billy.
“The idea! It's just as if one didn't have a namesake!” he fumed.
“Well, did you have one?” Bertram demanded one day. “Really, Will, I'm beginning to think she's a myth. Long years ago, from the first of April till June we did have two frolicsome sprites here that announced themselves as 'Billy' and 'Spunk,' I'll own. And a year later, by ways devious and secret, we three managed to see the one called 'Billy' off on a great steamship. Since then, what? A word—a message—a scrap of paper. Billy's a myth, I say!”
William sighed.
“Sometimes I don't know but you are right,” he admitted. “Why, it'll be three years next June since Billy was here. She must be nearly twenty-one—and we know almost nothing about her.”
“That's so. I wonder—” Bertram paused, and laughed a little, “I wonder if NOW she'd play guardian angel to me through the streets of Boston.”
William threw a keen glance into his brother's face.
“I don't believe it would be quite necessary, NOW, Bert,” he said quietly.