to accommodate any sort of refugees."

"Irrespective of race, creed, sex, or color," I whispered
parenthetically.

"No one is ever to be turned from the door without a good square meal,
and there's to be a back, outside stair erected, up which a tramp can go
at any hour of the night, and find a nice clean bed awaiting him--locked
away from the rest of the house, of course."

"Oh, why?" I innocently inquired. "Surely you have enough faith in your
brother man to believe that he would not commit any breach of
hospitality?"

"_I_ have," replied Belle, squeezing my recumbent form further against
the back of the sofa, upon which she had seated herself. "But remember
we are not all theosophists on the Board."

In the words of the historic witness against Mrs. Muldoon, "That's the
way the row began!" Belle was elected Treasurer of the House of Refuge,
but as she knows nothing of figures, I had to keep the books of that
unique institution, and was therefore enabled to form a practical
estimate of its workings.

I shall not attempt a description of the numerous "cases" in which my
advice, if not my pocketbook, was freely drawn upon, but shall leave
them, along with the description of the many antecedent fads of my
beloved better half, to some historian of longer wind, and shall content
myself with recounting the particular "case"--and attachments--which
most nearly affected our family life and happiness.

* * * * *

"This is what I call solid comfort," said Belle to me one evening late
in September, as we sat in the parlor in a couple of deep, springy
armchairs, fronting a huge grate fire, that would be banished by the
lighting of the furnace. "Children all in school again, your mother off
on a long visit, and plenty of new books on the table."

I looked up from one of the aforesaid new books.

"Just wait! The season's business hasn't begun in the Refuge yet."

"Everything is in good shape for it, though. We've had enough donations
of groceries and vegetables to keep us going almost all winter. We've
lots of wood for the furnace, and Mack and Hardy have given us some
second-hand furniture and----"

The electric door-bell sent out a long, imperative summons.

"Who can that be, Dave, at this time of night? None of the boys locked
out?"

"No; they all went up to bed a while ago."

Belle rose and walked to the door. I pulled the tidy from my chair-back
over my bald head to protect m