Listen," she cried gayly.

"Marie had a letter from her mother's Cousin Jane.

Cousin Jane couldn't sleep nights, because she was always lying awake to find out just what time it was; so Marie had written her about Aunt Hannah's clock.

And now this Cousin Jane has fixed _her_ clock, and she sleeps like a top, just because she knows there'll never be but half an hour that she doesn't know what time it is!" Bertram smiled, and murmured a polite "Well, I'm sure that's fine!"; but the words were plainly abstracted, and the frown had not left his brow.
Nor did it quite leave till some time later, when Billy, in answer to a question of his about another operetta, cried, with a shudder: "Mercy, I hope not, dear! I don't want to _hear_ the word 'operetta' again for a year!" Bertram smiled, then, broadly.

He, too, would be quite satisfied not to hear the word "operetta" for a year.