unfortunate position earlier in the morning, and he is prepared
to accept our hospitality. Flannigan, every person in this house
has got to work, as I also explained to you. You are appointed
dishwasher and scullery maid."

The policeman looked dazed. Then, slowly, like dawn over a
sleeping lake, a light of comprehension grew in his face.

"Sure," he said, laying his helmet on the table. "I'll be glad to
be doing anything I can to help. Me and Mrs. Wilson--we used to
be friends. It's many the time I've opened the carriage door for
her, and she with her head in the air, and for all that, the
pleasant smile. When any one around her was having a party and
wanted a special officer, it was Mrs. Wilson that always said,
Get Flannigan, Officer Timothy Flannigan. He's your man.'"

My heart had been going lower and lower. So he knew Bella, and he
knew I was not Bella, although he had not grasped the fact that I
was usurping her place. The odious Harbison man sat on the table
and swung his feet.

"I wonder if you know," he said, looking around him, "how good it
is to see a white woman so perfectly at home in a civilized
kitchen again, after two years of food cooked by a filthy Indian
squaw over a portable sheet-iron stove!"

SO PERFECTLY AT HOME? I stood in the middle of the room and
stared around at the copper things hanging up and the rows of
blue and white crockery, and the dozens and hundreds of
complicated-looking utensils, whose names I had never even heard,