It was a much-thumbed cookbook, and it was open where two once-blank pages bore his wife's handwriting.

On the first page, under the printed heading "Things to Remember," he read these sentences: "That rice swells till every dish in the house is full, and that spinach shrinks till you can't find it.
"That beets boil dry if you look out the window.
"That biscuits which look as if they'd been mixed up with a rusty stove poker haven't really been so, but have only got too much undissolved soda in them." There were other sentences, but Bertram's eyes chanced to fall on the opposite page where the "Things to Remember" had been changed to "Things to Forget"; and here Billy had written just four words: "Burns," "cuts," and "yesterday's failures." Bertram dropped the book then with a spasmodic clearing of his throat, and hurriedly resumed his search.

When he did find his wife, at last, he gave a cry of dismay--she was on her own bed, huddled in a little heap, and shaking with sobs.
"Billy! Why, Billy!" he gasped, striding to the bedside.
Billy sat up at once, and hastily wiped her eyes.
"Oh, is it you, B-Bertram?
I didn't hear you come in.

You--you s-said you weren't coming till six o'clock!" she choked.
"Billy, what is the meaning of this ?" "N-nothing.

I--I guess I'm just tired." "What have you been doing ?" Bertram spoke sternly, almost sharply.