dinner! I can see it all now."

"Alice says she's really learning to cook, in spite of old Pete's
horror, and Eliza's pleadings not to spoil her pretty hands."

"Then Pete is back all right? What a faithful old soul he is!"

Arkwright frowned slightly.

"Yes, he's faithful, but he isn't all right, by any means. I think he's
a sick man, myself."

"What makes Billy let him work, then?"

"Let him!" sniffed Arkwright. "I'd like to see you try to stop him! Mrs.
Henshaw begs and pleads with him to stop, but he scouts the idea. Pete
is thoroughly and unalterably convinced that the family would starve to
death if it weren't for him; and Mrs. Henshaw says that she'll admit he
has some grounds for his opinion when one remembers the condition of the
kitchen and dining-room the night she presided over them."

"Poor Billy!" chuckled Calderwell. "I'd have gone down into the kitchen
myself if I'd suspected what was going on."

Arkwright raised his eyebrows.

"Perhaps it's well you didn't--if Bertram's picture of what he found
there when he went down is a true one. Mrs. Henshaw acknowledges that
even the cat sought refuge under the stove."

"As if the veriest worm that crawls ever needed to seek refuge from
Billy!" scoffed Calderwell. "By the way, what's this Annex I hear of?
Bertram mentioned it, but I couldn't get either of them to tell what
it was. Billy wouldn't, and Bertram said he couldn't--not with Billy
shaking her head at him like that. So I had my suspicions. One of
Billy's pet charities?"

"She doesn't call it that." Arkwright's face and voice softened. "It is
Hillside. She still keeps it open. She calls it the Annex to her home.
She's filled it with a crippled woman, a poor little music teacher, a
lame boy, and Aunt Hannah."

"But how--extraordinary!"

"She doesn't think so. She says it's just an overflow house for the
extra happiness she can't use."

There was a moment's silence. Calderwell laid down his cigar, pulled out
his handkerchief, and blew his nose furiously. Then he got to his feet
and walked to the fireplace. After a minute he turned.

"Well, if she isn't the beat 'em!" he spluttered. "And I had the gall to
ask you if Henshaw made her--happy! Overflow house, indeed!"

"The best of it is, the way she does it," smiled Arkwright. "They're all
the sort of people ordinary charity could never reach; and the only way
she got them there at all was to make each one think that he or she was
absolutely