nd wiped the butter off Billy's chin.

"Before I go to town to-day I want to talk over that blue silk with
you," she said. "I don't know how much to get, and Eugenie is so
extravagant unless I get the stuff and tell her I got all there was in
the piece. Then she makes it do. Would you have it made up with lace?"

"Now, look here, Bee," I said, "I am not going to get my head all
muddled with dressmaking before I begin to write. I have all my ideas
ready to write that article for to-night. I am going to tell about Mr.
and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury. Don't you remember what happened? You
know if you side-track me on clothes I simply cannot do a thing."

"I know," said Bee, placidly. "No, Billy, not another lump of sugar.
Be quiet while mamma talks to Tattah. I know, but it seems to me you
might have selected another day to write. You know I wanted to consult
you about the dinner Thursday."

"I didn't select the day. The day selected me."

"Why didn't you write yesterday?"

"I didn't have any time."

"Why don't you wait until afternoon?"

"You know they are to be read tonight."

"Oh, very well, go ahead, and I won't bother you. I dare say the
dinner will be all right. But if you would just tell me which to use,
lace or chiffon with the blue?"

"Lace," I said, in desperation.

Bee half-way closed her eyes and took Billy's hand out of the
cream-pitcher.

"I think I'll use chiffon," she said.

The only use my advice is to Bee is to fasten her on to the opposite
thing. She says I help her to decide because I am always wrong.

"Now will you keep Billy away and excuse me to all visitors, and don't
come near my door for three hours and send my luncheon up at one
o'clock, and _don't send after the tray_! Leave it there until I have
finished writing."

"It is so untidy," murmured Bee.

"Well, who will see it?"

I am one of those who cleanse the outside of the desk and the bureau.

"Now, Billy, my precious, if you will keep away from Tattah all the
morning, I will give you some candy directly after dinner. You will
find it on the sconce just where I always put it," I said.

The sconce is where Billy and I put things for each other. He is only
three and a half--"thrippence, ha'penny," he says if you ask him, but
beguiling--oh, as beguiling as Cleopatra, or the serpent in the Garden
of Eden, or--or as his mother!

Billy and I went to look at the sconce on my way up-stairs, and he
called me back