“Nothing to do with papa?” she asked anxiously.
“No, no, Miss.”
“I’ll have some breakfast, then,” she said. “I’m very hungry from the ride in town.”
Billie ate a hurried but hearty meal alone.
“I never can do anything when I’m empty,” she often said, and instinctively she felt that trouble of some sort was brewing.
After breakfast she tapped on her cousin’s door.
“Come in,” came the tremulous answer, and Billie entered a darkened room.
Miss Campbell, looking faded and pale and wearing a black crepe dress, was sitting alone at the far end of her apartment. Her hands were crossed on her breast like a mediæval saint’s, and she looked the very picture of hopeless misery.
“Dear Cousin Helen, what has happened?” cried Billie, running to the little lady and kneeling beside her chair. “Is it something very terrible?”
Miss Campbell put her arm around the girl’s neck and two tears slipped down her faded cheeks.