Billikins! You naughty doggie, where
have you been?"

A white fox terrier had bounded into the room and was giving her
exuberant greeting, having stopped first to drop at her feet a
rag-doll that he carried in his mouth. "There, that will do," she
laughed as he sprang to her lap, and thence to her shoulder and
testified his overflowing affection with voice and tongue. "Get down
now and take care of your babykins!"

"I must go now," she declared, and, rising, began putting on hat and
coat. "I'll just run upstairs and kiss mother good-bye again. If
anything should happen, Bella, or should you want me to come home for
any reason, you can 'phone me at the office until five o'clock, and
after that at Dr. Annister's. Mrs. Annister, you know, is going to
chaperon Mildred and me. Wasn't it sweet of her to ask me to stay all
night with them!"

Five minutes later she came hurrying downstairs again, and Isabella,
waiting for her at the front door, put the suitcase into her hand,
pressed an arm about her waist, and gave her a farewell greeting.

"Have just as good a time as you can, Harry, dear," she said gaily,
"so you'll have all the more to tell mother and me tomorrow night!"

The morning sun shone down through the golden autumn foliage of the
maple trees that lined the street, and now irradiated Henrietta's
figure and then dyed it somberly as she passed with rapid step through
open space and shadow. Isabella watched her progress down the quiet
road toward the avenue, half a dozen blocks away, whence came the
clang of street cars and the rattle of traffic. But the girl turned
now and then and cast an eager glance in the other direction.

"I'm so glad she could go tonight," Isabella was thinking. "She works
so hard and she doesn't have many pleasures--neither do I! But I don't
mind--very much!" She cast another glance up the street and caught
sight of a smallish man's figure bending one-sidedly under a burden of
other people's joys and sorrows as he passed in and out of the
gateways in the next block. A pleased smile brightened her face and
she turned back to watch her sister's progress.

"There! She was just in time to catch that car! She's just a brick,
Harry is! What a funny notion about Felix Brand! If it was little
Bella, now--" She threw up her head saucily and danced a step or two
as she faced about to see how near the postman had come.

"'An' him small an' married!'" she repeated to herself and laughed
softly a