"It's all your fault," she said. "I was going to stay at home and get a little sleep—"

"Well, you can sleep now," Dallas broke in. "There'll be nothing to do but sleep."

"I think you haven't grasped the situation, Dal," I said icily. "There will be plenty to do. There isn't a servant in the house!"

"No servants!" everybody cried at once. The Mercer girls stopped giggling.

"Holy cats!" Max stopped in the act of hanging up his overcoat. "Do you mean—why, I can't shave myself! I'll cut my head off."

"You'll do more than that," I retorted grimly. "You will carry coal and tend fires and empty ash pans, and when you are not doing any of those things there will be pots and pans to wash and beds to make."

Then there WAS a row. We had worked back to the den now, and I stood in front of the fireplace and let the storm beat around me, and tried to look perfectly cold and indifferent, and not to see Mr. Harbison's shocked face. No wonder he thought them a lot of savages, browbeating their hostess the way they did.

"It's a fool thing anyhow," Max Reed wound up, "to celebrate the anniversary of a divorce—especially—" Here he caught Jim's eye and stopped. But I had suddenly remembered. BELLA DOWN IN THE BASEMENT!

Could anything have been worse? And of course she would have hysteria and then turn on me and blame me for it all. It all came over me at once and overwhelmed me, while Anne was crying and saying she wouldn't cook if she starved for it, and Aunt Selina was taking off her wraps. I felt queer all over, and I sat down suddenly. Mr. Harbison was looking at me, and he brought me a glass of wine.

"It won't be so bad as you fear," he said comfortingly. "There will be no danger once we are vaccinated,