Even when the next autumn came, there was still Paris to detain her for another long winter of study.
In the Henshaw house on Beacon Street, William mourned not a little as each recurring season brought no Billy.
"The idea! It's just as if one didn't have a namesake!" he fumed.
"Well, did you have one ?" Bertram demanded one day.

"Really, Will, I'm beginning to think she's a myth.

Long years ago, from the first of April till June we did have two frolicsome sprites here that announced themselves as 'Billy' and 'Spunk,' I'll own.

And a year later, by ways devious and secret, we three managed to see the one called 'Billy' off on a great steamship.

Since then, what?
A word--a message--a scrap of paper.