"Billy, what is it ?" The girl fell back at once.

She tried to laugh lightly.

She had seen the dismayed questioning in her lover's eyes, and in the eyes of William and the others.
"N-nothing," she gesticulated hurriedly.

"It was nothing at all, truly." "But, Billy, it _was_ something." Bertram's eyes were still troubled.
"Was it the picture?
I thought you liked this picture." Billy laughed again--this time more naturally.
"Bertram, I'm ashamed of you--expecting me to say I 'like' any of this," she scolded, with a wave of her hands toward the omnipresent Billy.
"Why, I feel as if I were in a room with a thousand mirrors, and that I'd been discovered putting rouge on my cheeks and lampblack on my eyebrows!" William laughed fondly.

Aunt Hannah and Marie gave an indulgent smile.
Cyril actually chuckled.