“Why, Aunt Hannah, aren't you glad? You said you'd be glad!”
“Yes, dear; and I am—very glad. It's only—if it doesn't take too much time—and if Bertram doesn't mind.”
Billy flushed. She laughed a little bitterly.
“No, it won't take too much time, I fancy, and—so far as Bertram is concerned—if what Sister Kate says is true, Aunt Hannah, he'll be glad to have me occupy a little of my time with something besides himself.”
“Fiddlededee!” bristled Aunt Hannah.
“What did she mean by that?”
Billy smiled ruefully.
“Well, probably I did need it. She said it night before last just before she went home with Uncle William. She declared that I seemed to forget entirely that Bertram belonged to his Art first, before he belonged to me; and that it was exactly as she had supposed it would be—a perfect absurdity for Bertram to think of marrying anybody.”
“Fiddlededee!” ejaculated the irate Aunt Hannah, even more sharply. “I hope you have too much good sense to mind what Kate says, Billy.”
“Yes, I know,” sighed the girl; “but of course I can see some things for myself, and I suppose I did make—a little fuss about his going to New York the other night. And I will own that I've had a real struggle with myself sometimes, lately, not to mind—his giving so much time to his portrait painting. And of course both of those are very reprehensible—in an artist's wife,” she finished, a little tremulously.