trigged it with a book. Both their faces, tired, too, and pale, were
sweet with kindness. T.O., who did queer and unexpected things, went
round the table on her toes and kissed Billy's forehead openly. Her face
had a puckering frown on it, oddly at variance with the kiss and with
the look in her eyes. The kiss and the look were the things that
mattered--the frown was a thing of insignificance.

"You poor little blessed!" she murmured.

"'Flat your b,'" murmured Billy wearily, and no one laughed. They were
all laughers, but the picture of Billy toiling on monotonously in her
sleep failed to appeal to them as humorous. T.O. went back silently to
her seat.

What the initials T.O. stood for in the way of a name had been the
subject of much guessing in the B-Hive, for the owner of the initials
refused whimsically to explain them. Perhaps she would sometime when the
moon was full or the wind was in the right quarter, she said. Meanwhile
T.O. did well enough--as well as "Billy," anyway, or "Laura Ann"! And
they fell in gayly with her whimsy and called her T.O. The nearest they
had ever come to an answer to their guesses was one night when they had
been discussing "talents" and comparing "callings," and T.O. had sat by,
a wistful little listener and admirer. For T.O. had no talent, and who
would call selling handkerchiefs from morning till night a "calling"?
Even sheer, fine handkerchiefs, warranted every thread linen!

"Talentless One," she broke out startlingly. "You want to know what
'T.O.' stands for--that's it!" And the amused look in the girls' eyes
changed quickly to understanding at sight of her face. "Well," she
challenged, "why don't you say what an appropriate name it is? It's a