“Good! I'll be there,” promised Billy, as she hung up the receiver. Quite forgetting the broom in the middle of the drawing-room floor, Billy tripped up-stairs to change her dress. On her lips was a gay little song. In her heart was joy. “I rather guess _now_ I'm tending to my husband and my home!” she was crowing to herself. Just as Billy was about to leave the house the telephone bell jangled again. It was Alice Greggory. “Billy, dear,” she called, “can't you come out? Mr. Arkwright and Mr. Calderwell are here, and they've brought some new music. We want you. Will you come?” “I can't, dear. Bertram wants me. He's sent for me. I've got some _housewifely_ duties to perform to-day,” returned Billy, in a voice so curiously triumphant that Alice, at her end of the wires, frowned in puzzled wonder as she turned away from the telephone. CHAPTER XVI. INTO TRAINING FOR MARY ELLEN Bertram told a friend afterwards that he never knew the meaning of the word “chaos” until he had seen the Strata during the weeks immediately following the laying away of his old servant. “Every stratum was aquiver with apprehension,” he declared; “and there was never any telling when the next grand upheaval would rock the whole structure to its foundations.” Nor was Bertram so far from being right. It was, indeed, a chaos, as none knew better than did Bertram's wife. Poor Billy! Sorry indeed were these days for Billy; and, as if to make her cup of woe full to overflowing, there were Sister Kate's epistolary “I told you so,” and Aunt Hannah's ever recurring lament: “If only, Billy, you were a practical housekeeper yourself, they wouldn't impose on you so!” Aunt Hannah, to be sure, offered Rosa, and Kate, by letter, offered advice--plenty of it. But Billy, stung beyond all endurance, and fairly radiating hurt pride and dogged determination, disdained all assistance, and, with head held high, declared she was getting along very well, very well indeed! And this was the way she “got along.” First came Nora. Nora was a blue-eyed, black-haired Irish girl, the sixth that the despairing Billy had interviewed on that fateful morning when Bertram had summoned her to his aid. Nora stayed two days. During her reign the entire Strata echoed to banged doors, dropped china, and slammed furniture. At her departure the Henshaws' possessions were less by four cups, two saucers, one plate, one salad bowl, two cut glass tumblers, and a teapot--the latter William's choicest bit of Lowestoft. Olga came next. Olga was a Treasure. She was low-voiced, gentle-eyed, and a good cook. She stayed a week. By that time the growing frequency of the disappearance of sundry small articles of value and convenience led to Billy's making a reluctant search of Olga's room--and to Olga's departure; for the room was, indeed, a treasure house, the Treasure having gathered unto itself other treasures.