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Billys Marriage
(Pathe Freres)
By RUTH BREWSTER
"Over the garden wall, The sweetest girl of all,"
hummed Billy, as he strolled about the garden, gathering a great bunch of crimson roses, and carefully trimming their thorns.
"That's a nice, appropriate tune you're singing," laughed a soft, lilting voice, and Billy whirled, to confront a girl's mischievous face peeping down from the top of the high, ivy-grown wall which surrounded the garden.
"Do you know the end of that song?" she asked, saucily, and Billy, first tossing her the crimson bouquet, began hunting for footholds in the wall, clinging to the friendly ivy branches, and chanting gaily, as he clambered :
"She had beautiful eyes and beautiful
hair, She was not very tall, so she stood on a
chair, And many a time I have kist her there, Over the garden wall."
"No, indeed," the girl protested, when he was perched beside her, looking adoringly at her flushed face, half hidden by the mass of fragrant blossoms. "That's only the middle of the song. Listen to the end. ' '
She tilted her fair head backward, like a bird's, a teasing, provocative light glinting in her gray-blue eyes, as she caroled:
"We hadn't much money, but weddings
are cheap, So while her dear father was soundly
asleep, With a lad and a ladder she managed to creep
Over the garden wall."
"That's the way it will have to be, all right, if I ever get you, Betty," said Billy, ruefully. ' ' I cant see why your father is so dead set against me,
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when he doesn 't know me at all. Why, he has never even seen me since I was sent away to school, almost fifteen years ago. I was a little, freckle-faced kid in knickerbockers then."
1 ' Yes, and your ball used to bounce over into our yard, and break windows in the greenhouse, and your dog used to worry our cat, and you wrapped yourself up in a sheet, one night, and frightened the best cook we ever had so that she left, and that settled it. My father vowed you should never in your life set foot on our side of the wall again."
"But those were childish pranks. It doesn't seem reasonable to hold them up against a fellow after he has grown up. Do let me come over and see him, Betty. He is a judge ; surely he will let me state my case. ' '
" No ; you dont know dad. He never changes, once he has decided. And you see, Billy" — Betty's color deepened here, and the gray-blue eyes flashed mutinously — "he and Mr. Harvey agreed, years ago, that John Harvey and I should marry when I was old enough. See this ring John gave me?"
' ' But, Betty dear, ' ' protested Billy, grasping the tiny hand and looking vindictively at the flashing diamond, "it isn't an engagement ring, is it? You dont for one moment think of marrying him, do you?"
"Indeed I dont!" reassured the girl, emphatically ; ' ' but I dont know what to do. I couldn't bear to quarrel with dad. He likes John, and then he has promised, and dad makes such a point of keeping his word. Why, they say that if dad once gives a decision, he stands by it thru thick and thin, regardless of who lines up on the other side."
' ' Hum-m-m, ' ' mused Billy, thoughtfully. "Wonder if I couldn't get some of his advice ? If he should ad