"What do you mean by 'a pause' ?" Billy cast down her eyes demurely.
"Well, of course _this_ ends the twelfth with Marie's wedding; but I've sort of regarded it as an--understudy for one that's coming next October, you see." "Billy, you darling!" breathed a supremely happy voice in a shell-like ear--Billy was not at arm's length now.
Billy smiled, but she drew away with gentle firmness.
"And now I must go back to my sewing," she said.
Bertram's arms did not loosen.

His eyes had grown mutinous again.
"That is," she amended, "I must be practising my part of--the understudy, you know." "You darling!" breathed Bertram again; this time, however, he let her go.
"But, honestly, is it all necessary ?" he sighed despairingly, as she seated herself and gathered the table-cloth into her lap.

"Do you have to do so much of it all ?" "I do," smiled Billy, "unless you want your brother to run the risk of leading his bride to the altar and finding her robed in a kitchen apron with an egg-beater in her hand for a bouquet." Bertram laughed.
"Is it so bad as that ?" "No, of course not--quite.

But never have I seen a bride so utterly oblivious to clothes as Marie was till one day in despair I told her that Cyril never could bear a dowdy woman." "As if Cyril, in the old days, ever could bear any sort of woman!" scoffed Bertram, merrily.
"I know; but I didn't mention that part," smiled Billy.

"I just singled out the dowdy one." "Did it work ?" Billy made a gesture of despair.
"Did it work! It worked too well.