I seem to be unusually sleepy." Billy said nothing.

"'Only nine,' indeed!" she was thinking wrathfully.
At the door Uncle William turned.
"You're not going to sit up, my dear, of course," he remarked.
For the second time that evening a cold hand seemed to clutch Billy's heart.
_Sit up!_ Had it come already to that?
Was she even now a wife who had need to _sit up_ for her husband?
"I really wouldn't, my dear," advised Uncle William again.

"Good night." "Oh, but I'm not sleepy at all, yet," Billy managed to declare brightly.
"Good night." Then Uncle William went up-stairs.
Billy turned to her book, which happened to be one of William's on "Fake Antiques." "'To collect anything, these days, requires expert knowledge, and the utmost care and discrimination,'" read Billy's eyes.

"So Uncle William _expected_ Bertram was going to spend the whole evening as well as stay to dinner!" ran Billy's thoughts.

"'The enormous quantity of bijouterie, Dresden and Battersea enamel ware that is now flooding the market, is made on the Continent--and made chiefly for the American trade,'" continued the book.
"Well, who cares if it is," snapped Billy, springing to her feet and tossing the volume aside.