, and
a glass jar of preserved peaches. In the kitchen a cheery bubbling from
the potatoes on the stove greeted her. Billy's spirits rose with the
steam.

"There, Spunkie," she said gayly to the cat, who had just uncurled from
a nap behind the stove. "Tell me I can't get up a dinner! And maybe
we'll have the peach fritters, too," she chirped. "I've got the
peach-part, anyway."

But Billy did not have the peach fritters, after all. She got out the
sugar and the flour, to be sure, and she made a great ado looking up the
rule; but a hurried glance at the clock sent her into the dining-room to
set the table, and all thought of the peach fritters was given up.

CHAPTER X. THE DINNER BILLY GOT

At five minutes of six Bertram and Calderwell came. Bertram gave his
peculiar ring and let himself in with his latchkey; but Billy did not
meet him in the hall, nor in the drawing-room. Excusing himself, Bertram
hurried up-stairs. Billy was not in her room, nor anywhere on that
floor. She was not in William's room. Coming down-stairs to the hall
again, Bertram confronted William, who had just come in.

"Where's Billy?" demanded the young husband, with just a touch of
irritation, as if he suspected William of having Billy in his pocket.

William stared slightly.

"Why, I don't know. Isn't she here?"

"I'll ask Pete," frowned Bertram.

In the dining-room Bertram found no one, though the table was prettily
set, and showed half a grapefruit at each place. In the kitchen--in the
kitchen Bertram found a din of rattling tin, an odor of burned food--, a
confusion of scattered pots and pans, a frightened cat who peered at him
from under a littered stove, and a flushed, disheveled young woman in a
blue dust-cap and ruffled apron, whom he finally recognized as his wife.

"Why, Billy!" he gasped.

Billy, who was struggling with something at the sink, turned sharply.

"Bertram Henshaw," she panted, "I used to think you were wonderful
because you could paint a picture. I even used to think I was a little
wonderful because I could write a song. Well, I don't any more! But I'll
tell you who _is_ wonderful. It's Eliza and Rosa, and all the rest of
those women who can get a meal on to the table all at once, so it's fit
to eat!"

"Why, Billy!" gasped Bertram again, falling back to the door he had
closed behind him. "What in the world does this mean?"

"Mean? It means I'm getting dinner," choked Billy. "Can't you see?"

"But--Pe