eyes. She
was no longer airily playful.

"That's exactly it, Bertram. I don't know how--but I'm going to learn. I
haven't had experience--but I'm going to get it. I _can't_ make a worse
mess of it than we've had ever since Eliza went, anyway!"

"But if you'd get a maid--a good maid," persisted Bertram, feebly.

"I had _one_--Mary Ellen. She was a good maid--until she found out how
little her mistress knew; then--well, you know what it was then. Do you
think I'd let that thing happen to me again? No, sir! I'm going into
training for--my next Mary Ellen!" And with a very majestic air Billy
rose from the table and began to clear away the dishes.

CHAPTER XVII. THE EFFICIENCY STAR--AND BILLY

Billy was not a young woman that did things by halves. Long ago, in
the days of her childhood, her Aunt Ella had once said of her: "If only
Billy didn't go into things all over, so; but whether it's measles or
mud pies, I always know that she'll be the measliest or the muddiest
of any child in town!" It could not be expected, therefore, that Billy
would begin to play her new role now with any lack of enthusiasm. But
even had she needed any incentive, there was still ever ringing in her
ears Bertram's accusing: "If you'd tend to your husband and your home
a little more--" Billy still declared very emphatically that she
had forgiven Bertram; but she knew, in her heart, that she had not
forgotten.

Certainly, as the days passed, it could not be said that Billy was not
tending to her husband and her home. From morning till night, now,
she tended to nothing else. She seldom touched her piano--save to dust
it--and she never touched her half-finished song-manuscript, long since
banished to the oblivion of the music cabinet. She made no calls except
occasional flying visits to the Annex, or to the pretty new home
where Marie and Cyril were now delightfully settled. The opera and the
Symphony were over for the season, but even had they not been, Billy
could not have attended them. She had no time. Surely she was not
doing any "gallivanting" now, she told herself sometimes, a little
aggrievedly.

There was, indeed, no time. From morning until night Billy was busy,
flying from one task to another. Her ambition to have everything just
right was equalled only by her dogged determination to "just show them"
that she could do this thing. At first, of course, hampered as she was
by ignorance and inexperience, each task consumed about