Bertram told a friend afterwards that he never knew the meaning of the word “chaos¹” until he had seen the Strata² during the weeks immediately following the laying away of his old servant.

 

“Every stratum³ was aquiver with apprehension⁴,” he declared; “and there was never any telling when the next grand upheaval⁵ 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 woe⁶ full to overflowing⁷, there were Sister Kate's epistolary “I told you so,” and Aunt Hannah's ever recurring⁸ lament⁹: “If only, Billy, you were a practical housekeeper¹⁰ 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, disdained¹¹ 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

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