out of touch with the doings of the outside world,
something which had not happened to me before for years, save in the
few awful days of my mother's last illness. I really must catch up
again.

I was so deep in a vivid description of the desolation in Belgium that
I did not hear Dicky enter. I started as he kissed me.

"Headache better, sweetheart?" he added, lover-like remembering
and making much of the slight headache I had had when he left that
morning. "It must be, or you wouldn't be able to read that horror." He
closed the magazine playfully and drew me to my feet.

"I am perfectly well," I replied, "and I have good news for you. We
have a maid, a trifle rough in her manner, but one who I think will be
very good."

"That's fine," Dicky said heartily. "I'd much rather come home to find
you comfortably reading than scorching your face and reddening your
hands in a kitchen."

"Say, Missis Graham!"

Katie came swiftly into the room, and I heard an exclamation of
surprise from Dicky.

"Why, Katie, wherever did you come from?"

But Katie, with a scream of fear, her face white with terror, backed
into the kitchen. I heard her opening the door where she had put her
hat and cloak, then the slamming of the kitchen door.

I looked at Dicky in amazement. What did it all mean?

He caught up his hat and dashed to the front door.

"Quick, Madge!" he called. "Follow her out the kitchen door as fast as
you can. I'll meet you at the servant's entrance! I wouldn't let her
get away for a hundred dollars!"

I obeyed Dicky's instructions, but with a feeling of disgust creeping
over me. I have always hated a scene, and this performance savored too
much of moving picture melodrama to suit me.

I hurried down the two flights of stairs and on toward the servant's
entrance. I was almost there when Katie came flying back, almost into
my arms.

"Oh, Missis Graham," she moaned.

"You kind lady. I pay it all back. I always have it with me. Don't let
him put me in prison. I work, work my fingers to the bone for you. If
you only not let him put me in prison."

Dicky came up behind us. As she saw him she shrank closer to me in a
pitiful, frightened way, and put out both her hands as if to push him
away.

"Don't be frightened, Katie," he said. Come to the house and tell me
about it."

"Bring her into the living room and get her quieted before I talk to
her," suggested Dicky, as he disappeared into his room after I had got