.

THE CAUSE AND BERTRAM.
February came The operetta, for which Billy was working so hard, was to be given the twentieth.

The Art Exhibition, for which Bertram was preparing his four pictures, was to open the sixteenth, with a private view for specially invited friends the evening before.
On the eleventh day of February Mrs.Greggory and her daughter arrived at Hillside for a ten-days' visit.

Not until after a great deal of pleading and argument, however, had Billy been able to bring this about.
"But, my dears, both of you," Billy had at last said to them; "just listen.

We shall have numberless rehearsals during those last ten days before the thing comes off.