Miss Billy Part 33

At ten minutes of four Billy and Mrs. Hartwell, with Mr. Hartwell and Bertram as escorts, entered the cool, echoing shadows under the Stadium, and then out in the sunlight they began to climb the broad steps to their seats.

"I wanted them high up, you see," explained Bertram, "because you can get the effect so much better. There, here we are!"

For the first time Billy turned and looked about her. She gave a low cry of delight.

"Oh, oh, how beautiful--how wonderfully beautiful!"

"You just wait!" crowed Bertram. "If you think this is beautiful, you just wait!"

Billy did not seem to hear him. Her eyes were sweeping the wonderful scene before her, and her face was aglow with delight.

First there was the great amphitheater itself. Only the wide curve of the horseshoe was roped off for to-day's audience. Beyond lay the two sides with their tier above tier of empty seats, almost dazzling in the sunshine. Within the roped-off curve the scene was of kaleidoscopic beauty. Charmingly gowned young women and carefully groomed young men were everywhere, stirring, chatting, laughing. Gay-colored parasols and flower-garden hats made here and there brilliant splashes of rainbow tints. Above was an almost cloudless canopy of blue, and at the far horizon, earth and sky met and made a picture that was like a wondrous painted curtain hung from heaven itself.

At the first sound of the distant band that told of the graduates'

coming, Bertram said almost wistfully:

"Cla.s.s Day is the only time when I feel 'out of it.' You see I'm the first male Henshaw for ages that hasn't been through Harvard; and to-day, you know, is the time when the old grads come back and do stunts like the kids--if they can (and some of them can all right!). They march in by cla.s.ses ahead of the seniors, and vie with each other in giving their yells. You'll see Cyril and William, if your eyes are sharp enough--and you'll see them as you never saw them before."

Far down the green field Billy spied now the long black line of moving figures with a band in the lead. Nearer and nearer it came until, greeted by a mighty roar from thousands of throats, the leaders swept into the great bowl of the horseshoe curve.

And how they yelled and cheered--those men whose first Cla.s.s Day lay five, ten, fifteen, even twenty or more years behind them, as told by the banners which they so proudly carried. How they got their heads together and gave the "Rah! Rah! Rah!" with unswerving eyes on their leader! How they beat the air with their hats in time to their l.u.s.ty shouts! And how the throngs above cheered and clapped in answer, until they almost split their throats--and did split their gloves--especially when the black-gowned seniors swept into view.

And when the curving line of black had become one solid ma.s.s of humanity that filled the bowl from side to side, the vast throng seated themselves, and a great hush fell while the Glee Club sang.

Young Hartwell proved to be a good speaker, and his ringing voice reached even the topmost tier of seats. Billy was charmed and interested. Everything she saw and heard was but a new source of enjoyment, and she had quite forgotten the thing for which she was to "wait," when she saw the ushers pa.s.sing through the aisles with their baskets of many-hued packages of confetti and countless rolls of paper ribbon.

It began then, the merry war between the students below and the throng above. In a trice the air was filled with shimmering bits of red, blue, white, green, purple, pink, and yellow. From all directions fluttering streamers that showed every color of the rainbow, were flung to the breeze until, upheld by the supporting wires, they made a fairy lace work of marvelous beauty.

"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Billy, her eyes misty with emotion. "I think I never saw anything in my life so lovely!

"I thought you'd like it," gloried Bertram. "You know I said to wait!"

But even with this, Cla.s.s Day for Billy was not finished. There was still Hartwell's own spread from six to eight, and after that there were the President's reception, and dancing in the Memorial Hall and in the Gymnasium. There was the Fairyland of the yard, too, softly aglow with moving throngs of beautiful women and gallant men. But what Billy remembered best of all was the exquisite harmony that came to her through the hushed night air when the Glee Club sang Fair Harvard on the steps of Holworthy Hall.

CHAPTER x.x.xV

SISTER KATE AGAIN

It was on the Sunday following Cla.s.s Day that Mrs. Hartwell carried out her determination to "speak to William." The West had not taken from Kate her love of managing, and she thought she saw now a matter that sorely needed her guiding hand.

William's thin face, anxious looks, and nervous manner had troubled her ever since she came. Then one day, very suddenly, had come enlightenment: William was in love--and with Billy.

Mrs. Hartwell watched William very closely after that. She saw his eyes follow Billy fondly, yet anxiously. She saw his open joy at being with her, and at any little attention, word, or look that the girl gave him.

She remembered, too, something that Bertram had said about William's grief because Billy would not live at the Strata. She thought she saw something else, also: that Billy was fond of William, but that William did not know it; hence his frequent troubled scrutiny of her face.

Why these two should play at cross purposes Sister Kate could not understand. She smiled, however, confidently: they should not play at cross purposes much longer, she declared.

On Sunday afternoon Kate asked her eldest brother to take her driving.

"Not a motor car; I want a horse--that will let me talk," she said.

"Certainly," agreed William, with a smile; but Bertram, who chanced to hear her, put in the sly comment: "As if ANY horse could prevent--that!"

On the drive Kate began to talk at once, but she did not plunge into the subject nearest her heart until she had adroitly led William into a glowing enumeration of Billy's many charming characteristics; then she said:

"William, why don't you take Billy home with you?"

William stirred uneasily as he always did when anything annoyed him.

"My dear Kate, there is nothing I should like better to do," he replied.

"Then why don't you do it?"

"I--hope to, sometime."

"But why not now?"

"I'm afraid Billy is not quite--ready."

"Nonsense! A young girl like that does not know her own mind lots of times. Just press the matter a little. Love will work wonders--sometimes."

William blushed like a girl. To him her words had but one meaning--Bertram's love for Billy. William had never spoken of this suspected love affair to any one. He had even thought that he was the only one that had discovered it. To hear his sister refer thus lightly to it came therefore in the nature of a shock to him.

"Then you have--seen it--too?" he stammered

"'Seen it, too,'" laughed Kate, with her confident eyes on William's flushed face, "I should say I had seen it! Any one could see it."

William blushed again. Love to him had always been something sacred; something that called for hushed voices and twilight. This merry discussion in the sunlight of even another's love was disconcerting.

"Now come, William," resumed Kate, after a moment; "speak to Billy, and have the matter settled once for all. It's worrying you. I can see it is."

Again William stirred uneasily.

"But, Kate, I can't do anything. I told you before; I don't believe Billy is--ready."

"Nonsense! Ask her."

"But Kate, a girl won't marry against her will!"

"I don't believe it is against her will."

"Kate! Honestly?"

"Honestly! I've watched her."

"Then I WILL speak," cried the man, his face alight, "if--if you think anything I can say would--help. There is nothing--nothing in all this world that I so desire, Kate, as to have that little girl back home. And of course that would do it. She'd live there, you know."