So it was arranged, and a couple of days later, with a wildly beating
heart and a rueful smile upon her lips, Billie stood with Chet upon the
station platform and waved good-bye to her father and mother.

When the train had rounded the curve and disappeared with one last
challenging blast of the whistle, Billie and Chet turned to each other,
feeling as lost and forlorn as the babes in the wood.

"Now, what do we do next?" breathed Billie, breaking the silence at last.
"I feel helpless, Chet."

"Well, I don't think you have anything on me," admitted Chet slangily. "I
suppose the most sensible thing to do would be to go home and see how
Debbie is getting on with the lunch."

"Goodness, that's the first time I ever had to be reminded that I was
hungry," said Billie, and with that they laughed and felt more natural.

The rest of that day went off beautifully, and Billie was beginning to
feel very confident when suddenly Debbie threw a suggestion bomb-like in
the midst of her contentment.

"I hate to bother you, miss," said the black cook, approaching her
mistress the next morning--Billie, by the way, was busily dusting the
living-room with a very becoming dust cap perched on top of her pretty
hair, "but this is mah day out."

"Your--day--out!" gasped Billie, sitting down hard on the chair she had
been dusting and regarding Debbie's black face with dismay. "You never
can mean that you are going to desert me, Debbie? Leave me to do all the
cooking and--and--everything--" The awful vision was too much for her
and her voice died down to a whisper.

"I'm tur'ble sorry, Miss Billie," said Debbie, gently but very, very
firmly, "but mah young man and me we has a mos' awful impo'tant
in-gagement fo' dis aft'noon, an' I couldn't break it--no'm, much as I
want to." She added that last in the evident hope of appeasing her young
mistress, who was still regarding her with horrified eyes.

"But, Debbie," gasped Billie when she could find her voice, "I don't know
a thing in the world about cooking. Have you--have you--ordered
anything?"

"Yas, indeed," Debbie assured her, going on to explain that the meal was
virtually prepared anyway. "I done made a salad for you and Chet, an' the
butter beans am in de pan. Dere is some stew too, which all you has to do
is to warm up, Miss Billie. An' I done make a big peach pie, an' dere's
some whipped cream in de 'frig'rater. So I reckons you-all won't starve
to death," she added, with a broa