Billy still went frequently to the Annex. There were yet two unfilled rooms in the house. Billy was hesitating which two of six new friends of hers to choose as occupants; and it was one day early in March, after she had been talking the matter over with Aunt Hannah, that Aunt Hannah said:
``Dear me, Billy, if you had your way I believe you'd open another whole house!''
``Do you know?--that's just what I'm thinking of,'' retorted Billy, gravely. Then she laughed at Aunt Hannah's shocked gesture of protest.
``Oh, well, I don't expect to,'' she added. ``Ihaven't lived very long, but I've lived long enough to know that you can't always do what you want to.''
``Just as if there were anything _you_ wanted to do that you don't do, my dear,'' reproved Aunt Hannah, mildly.
``Yes, I know.'' Billy drew in her breath with a little catch. ``I have so much that is lovely;and that's why I need this house, you know, for the overflow,'' she nodded brightly. Then, with a characteristic change of subject, she added:
``My, but you should have tasted of the popovers I made for breakfast this morning!''
``I should like to,'' smiled Aunt Hannah.
``William says you're getting to be quite a cook.''
``Well, maybe,'' conceded Billy, doubtfully.
``Oh, I can do some things all right; but just wait till Pete and Eliza go away again, and Bertram brings home a friend to dinner. That'll tell the tale. I think now I could have something besides potato-mush and burned corn--but maybe I wouldn't, when the time came. If only I could buy everything I needed to cook with, I'd be all right. But I can't, I find.''
``Can't buy what you need! What do you mean?''
Billy laughed ruefully.
``Well, every other question I ask Eliza, she says: `Why, I don't know; you have to use your judgment.' Just as if I had any judgment about how much salt to use, or what dish to take!
Dear me, Aunt Hannah, the man that will grow judgment and can it as you would a mess of peas, has got his fortune made!''
``What an absurd child you are, Billy,'' laughed Aunt Hannah. ``I used to tell Marie-- By the way, how is Marie? Have you seen her lately?''
``Oh, yes, I saw her yesterday,'' twinkled Billy.
``She had a book of wall-paper samples spread over the back of a chair, two bunches of samples of different colored damasks on the table before her, a `Young Mother's Guide' propped open in another chair, and a pair of baby's socks in her lap with a roll each of pink, and white, and blue ribbon. She spent most of the time, after I had helped her choose the ribbon, in asking me if I thought she ought to let the baby cry and bother Cyril, or stop its crying and hurt the baby, because her `Mother's Guide' says a certain amount of crying is needed to develop a baby's lungs.''
Aunt Hannah laughed, but she frowned, too.
``The idea! I guess Cyril can stand proper crying--and laughing, too--from his own child!'' she said then, crisply.
``Oh, but Marie is afraid he can't,'' smiled Billy. ``And that's the trouble. She says that's the only thing that worries her--Cyril.''
``Nonsense!'' ejaculated Aunt Hannah.
``Oh, but it isn't nonsense to Marie,'' retorted Billy. ``You should see the preparations she's made and the precautions she's taken. Actually, when I saw those baby's socks in her lap, I didn't know but she was going to put rubber heels on them! They've built the new house with deadening felt in all the walls, and Marie's planned the nursery and Cyril's den at opposite ends of the house; and she says she shall keep the baby there _all_ the time--the nursery, I mean, not the den. She says she's going to teach it to be a quiet baby and hate noise. She says she thinks she can do it, too.''
``Humph!'' sniffed Aunt Hannah, scornfully.
``You should have seen Marie's disgust the other day,'' went on Billy, a bit mischievously.
``Her Cousin Jane sent on a rattle she'd made herself, all soft worsted, with bells inside. It was a dear; but Marie was horror-stricken.
`My baby have a rattle?' she cried. `Why, what would Cyril say? As if he could stand a rattle in the house!' And if she didn't give that rattle to the janitor's wife that very day, while I was there!''
``Humph!'' sniffed Aunt Hannah again, as Billy rose to go. ``Well, I'm thinking Marie has still some things to learn in this world--and Cyril, too, for that matter.''
``I wouldn't wonder,'' laughed Billy, giving Aunt Hannah a good-by kiss.
