No wonder then, that now, in the soft radiance of the strange, new light on her face, his own face glowed ardently, and that he leaned forward with an impetuous rush of eager words.
"But there is time, Miss Billy--if you'd give me leave--to say--" "I'm afraid I kept you waiting," interrupted the hurried voice of Alice Greggory from the hall doorway.

"I was asleep, I think, when a clock somewhere, striking eleven--Why, Mr .-- Arkwright!" Not until Alice Greggory had nearly crossed the room did she see that the man standing by her hostess was--not the tenor she had expected to find--but an old acquaintance.

Then it was that the tremulous "Mr.-Arkwright!" fell from her lips.
Billy and Arkwright had turned at her first words.

At her last, Arkwright, with a half-despairing, half-reproachful glance at Billy, stepped forward.
"Miss Greggory!--you _are_ Miss Alice Greggory, I am sure," he said pleasantly.
At the first opportunity Billy murmured a hasty excuse and left the room.

To Aunt Hannah she flew with a woebegone face.
"Oh, Aunt Hannah, Aunt Hannah," she wailed, half laughing, half crying; "that wretched little fib-teller of a clock of yours spoiled it all!" "Spoiled it! Spoiled what, child ?" "My first meeting between Mary Jane and Miss Greggory.