Mother paused on her way past the playroom door, and listened. She knew Betsey did not have company, and yet there was a sound of three voices,—first a pleasant deep, bass voice, and then a pleasant silvery little voice, and then a pleasant low bark. Mother pushed open the door very softly and looked in.

There lay Betsey on the great fur rug, with her curly head propped up on her hand. Before her stood the low, broad Morris chair, divided into two rooms. Mother knew it must be a bedroom at the back, on account of the funny bed made of a box-cover, and covered with a gay patchwork quilt, Betsey’s very first piece of sewing. And nobody could possibly mistake the dining-room in front, with its large red pasteboard table, and little Mrs. Delight at one end, and her cute little husband at the other. Black Dinah stood by the table, smiling as usual, ready to serve a large platter of salad, and Dumpling Delight barked gruffly once in a while, because there were so many tantalizing smells in the air.

“Will you have a breaded chop, my dear?” asked Mr. Delight.

“Yes, thank you, William. Will you have some of the creamed oysters?”

“And some of dis yeah lobster salad?” inquired Dinah.

(“Mercy,” thought Mother, behind the door, “what a dinner!”)

“I’ll tell you what I wish,” said Mr. Delight with a deep cough, “I wish we could invite your sister Prudence and her husband to spend a week with us.”

“Where in name hebben would you put comp’ny, now, Massa Willyum? I ask you dat,” demanded Dinah.

“Yes, William!” echoed Mrs. Delight. “This house is certainly a tight fit for three, and with two extra ones!”

“I wish I could afford a larger house,” said Mr. Delight in a worried tone.

“My dear husband!” exclaimed Mrs. Delight. Betsey had to sit up straight on the rug and take Mrs. Delight around the table to kiss her husband affectionately. “I didn’t mean a word I said, William; I really didn’t.”

“There, there, my dear, I know you didn’t,” replied Mr. Delight soothingly.

But Mother suspected that Mr. Delight was worried just the same, so she softly pulled the door together and tiptoed away to the telephone. She smiled to herself as she called up the carpenter-shop.

“I want you to make my daughter Betsey a doll-house, Mr. Jones,” she said. “Just like the one you made for your little girl,—that had four rooms and six windows, and a big door between the rooms. And can you get it done for Betsey’s birthday? In four days?”

“I will get it done, paint and all,” promised Mr. Jones. And he did.

On the morning of her ninth birthday, Betsey came smiling to breakfast, expecting to see a pile of dainty white parcels at her plate.

“Your birthday present is up in the playroom, Betsey dear,” said Mother with a kiss.

“I’m afraid she won’t like it,” said Father.

Now, whenever Father said that,—“I’m afraid she won’t like it,”—Betsey’s present was sure to be very large and wonderful. Once it had been her shiny bicycle, once her new blue playroom, and once her darling black pony. So Betsey finished her breakfast in great excitement, hurried upstairs to the playroom and pushed open the door. And there it stood in the center of the room,—the dear little house, painted snow-white inside and pale green outside,—with four rooms and six windows and tiny window-sashes, and the cunningest threshold!

Betsey rushed over to the dainty little cottage, put her head in the little dining-room and looked through the double doors into the drawing-room. “Just to see how it would seem to live here,” she thought. And then her eyes fell on a square white card dangling from one of the little window-sashes.

“THE HOUSE OF DELIGHT” said the card. “To Betsey, from Father and Mother.”

“I’ll say thank you before I begin to play,” decided Betsey, tossing back her curls and clattering down-stairs at a great rate.

“Here’s that child!” exclaimed Father. “I was afraid she wouldn’t like it!”

“O but she does!” shouted Betsey, whirling around in the middle of the room. “Mr. Delight has wanted to move for the longest while!”

“What do you say, Mother,” said Father with a twinkle, “if we excuse Betsey today from doing any hard work?”

“Betsey can simply make her bed,” agreed Mother.

So Betsey whisked the white covers over her little brass bed as smoothly as she could (with a perfectly new doll-house waiting), and hurried back to the House of Delight.

Little Mr. Delight was sitting in his law office behind the radiator. Betsey picked him up, put on his gray derby hat, and walked him rapidly across the room to the Morris chair.

“Edith, O Edith!” he cried excitedly. “My salary has been raised to a million dollars a year! Now we can move into a new house!”

“How perfectly lovely!” cried Mrs. Delight. “Can’t we buy one directly?”

“We certainly can, my dear,” replied Mr. Delight. “We will go down right away and see Mr. Betts, the carpenter, and see what houses he has on hand for sale.”

Betsey slipped off the excited little gentleman’s business coat and put on his black one with the long tails, thrust his cane under his arm, and propped him up against the chair-back to wait for Mrs. Delight, who was much slower in dressing. Betsey selected a white silk blouse and tailored skirt for Mrs. Delight, and opened her gay Japanese parasol. Then, while the happy dolls were taking the trolley ride to Mr. Betts’ carpenter-shop—(really standing stiffly all the time against the chair-back)—Betsey hustled the untidy shop into order. Then she drew the table over to the window, settled her fat tube of paste, her bottle of glue, her scissors and scraps of satin on it, and sat down before it, very importantly, as Mr. Betts, the carpenter. And what a smiling carpenter she was!

“Good day, Mr. Betts,” said Mr. Delight (quite out of breath with the stairs), “we want to buy a new house.”

“What kind of a house?” asked Mr. Betts thoughtfully, setting his little customers up against a pile of books.

“A moderately large house, Mr. Betts,” replied Mr. Delight, “that is well-built,—for myself, my wife, and a colored cook.”

“Aha!” exclaimed Mr. Betts. “I have the very house!”

“Shall we take a look at it, my dear?” said Mr. Delight, offering his arm to his wife. And presently they stood in Mr. Betts’ brand new house, that was painted snow-white inside and pale green outside, that was well-built and just right for three people.

“O what a lovely house!” exclaimed Mrs. Delight.

“How much is it?” asked Mr. Delight, taking out his check-book.

“It is $15,000, but it is very well-built and—”

“That is quite satisfactory to me, Mr. Betts,” said Mr. Delight, calmly writing his check for $15,000.

“And you can supply us with furniture, I suppose?” asked Mr. Delight, passing the check to the obliging carpenter.

“Everything from a rocking-chair to a telephone,” said Mr. Betts happily.

“Betsey!” called Mother’s voice.

“Here is a present from Aunty, for your birthday,” said Mother when Betsey opened the door.

Betsey sat right down on the stairs, smoothed out the long, pink ribbon carefully (for she was sure to need it when she became Madame Bettina, the French dressmaker), and shook out her present. It was a tiny sideboard with shelves for Mrs. Delight’s china, with fascinating doors that opened and shut, each set with a little silver-colored knob.

“O for my new house!” cried Betsey. “Isn’t it the luckiest thing, Mother, for I’m afraid Mr. Betts doesn’t keep sideboards!”

Mother laughed and waved her hand at the happy little figure.

“Now, as long as the house is decided upon,” said Mr. Betts cheerfully, taking one of the little millionaires in each hand, and sitting down at his work-table, “I suppose the next thing is furniture.”

“We want everything,” declared Mr. Delight recklessly. “We want a piano, and a window-seat, and a sideboard—”

“I have a sideboard that came in this morning,” interrupted Mr. Betts, rolling it out directly.

“O isn’t it sweet?” said Mrs. Delight, clasping her hands. “Dinah and I will paper the shelves with that scalloped paper that comes on purpose. Think of it, William, full of our wedding china!”

“Betsey! O Betsey!” called Tom, plunging up the stairs. “See what I’ve got.”

Betsey turned around and examined with interest a piece of gilt molding about six inches long that Tom held out.

“See, lay it on this side, and presto! it’s a sofa! You can have it.”

“O Tom, how kind of you! I’ll make a huckaback pillow for it,—pink and green. It will be too dear for anything!”

“Hum,” thought Tom on his way down-stairs. “I didn’t think she’d be so awfully pleased with a little thing like that. Maybe I could saw her out a little chair on my jig-saw—I wonder?”

And in a few minutes there was a strange, buzzing sound down cellar, that kept time to the hum of Madame Bettina’s tiny sewing-machine upstairs. For it was Madame Bettina that had to make the sheets and pillow-cases and net curtains, and all the things which are hardly in a carpenter’s line.

“How can I make a telephone?” puzzled Betsey. And she gazed thoughtfully at her box of beads.

“Aha!” exclaimed Mr. Betts suddenly, taking two large silver beads from his box.

“Ho-ho!” he laughed, rummaging excitedly in the closet where he kept his smooth pieces of kindling wood.

“Yes, Mr. Delight,” he remarked calmly, “I will personally see to it that the telephone is put in the very first thing, so you won’t lose an important call.” He began to paint a small piece of wood a rich, deep brown, with water colors.

“Another small piece of wood for a battery box,” murmured Betsey, whanging away at an obstinate nail. “The two silver beads for bells, a two-pointed tack to hold the receiver—a green cord—a roll of black paper stuck into a black bead for a receiver—. Now, what on earth for a speaking tube?”

Speaking of tubes! Mr. Betts triumphantly took the cap from his tube of paste, and with one resounding rap of his hammer, nailed it securely in the exact center of the new telephone!

“Hullo, up there!” called a deep voice at the foot of the stairs.

“Come up, come up!” called Betsey, running to open the door for her father. “See the telephone.”

“Well, quite a telephone, indeed!” said Father admiringly. “Now, what can you do with this?” He laid a polished wooden stamp-box in her hand.

Betsey thought a moment. “A clock. Glue the cover down, paint a lace, stick on a pendulum—”

“And hang it on the wall!” finished Father. And he smiled over his shoulder to see Betsey change so suddenly into Mr. Betts, who must somehow sell to Mr. Delight a Grandfather’s clock,—solid oak, keeping perfect time, and extremely reasonable in price.

“Do you want to live in your new house at once, or wait until everything is done?” asked Mr. Betts.

“O live there at once, William!” pleaded Mrs. Delight. “I am just crazy to hang the curtains!”

“O.K.,” said Mr. Delight. “You get Dinah to come over to help you, and I will superintend Mr. Betts and his moving men.”

Soon the tiny drawing-room was in great confusion. Dinah and her mistress sat among great piles of net and lace, running the dainty curtains on their poles, tying them back with wide rose-colored ribbons, and getting up and down on the step-ladder to arrange the folds. Suddenly, as Betsey swung Mrs. Delight gently from the little ladder, a tiny elastic between Mrs. Delight’s arms snapped, and down fell her round right arm on the soft new carpet!

“Massa Willyum!” shrieked Dinah. “Miss Edith done broke her arm a-falling off dis yeah step-ladder! Telephone for de doctor, wid de new telephone!”

Mr. Delight rushed distractedly to the telephone. “Dr. Betson, please come immediately! Yes, my wife has broken her arm. It’s very serious indeed!”

“I will come just as soon as my motor can get there,” replied Dr. Betson.

Dinah was wringing her hands and crying when Mr. Delight hurried into the drawing-room.

“Don’t feel so badly, Dinah,” said Mrs. Delight bravely. “Dr. Betson is the best surgeon in the world.” And as she smiled a little, Dr. Betson rang the bell violently.

“Well, well!” he said heartily, kneeling down to examine the break. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Delight, because I can fix this arm in a trice! Just spread a few blankets on the floor for a comfortable bed and I’ll go to work.”

Betsey pulled a piece of new elastic (kept for just this purpose) out of her work-box, threaded Mrs. Delight’s arms on, and tied them tight. And then to make her work look quite professional, she bandaged the right arm beautifully with cheese cloth.

“Is it possible the arm is set?” asked Mrs. Delight as the doctor put up his instruments (a ribbon-runner and a pair of blunt scissors).

“All done, Madam,” declared Dr. Betson. “This is a very fortunate kind of break. Now that it is properly set, you do not even need to be careful. I would suggest that you take a good rest, however.”

“Indeed she will!” agreed Mr. Delight shaking hands with the gruff doctor. He was still quite pale. “Now, as soon as I can move Mrs. Delights bed up to her room, we will all go to bed, for we are very much exhausted with moving.”

Betsey carefully slipped on Mrs. Delight’s long, lacy night-dress, and tucked her in gently, and soon she was asleep.

And soon Mr. Delight left Dumpling asleep, and tiptoed up to bed, and soon he was asleep. As for Dinah, she was asleep in two minutes. So the tall, shiny clock on the wall ticked through the night alone, for Betsey crept happily into her own white bed, and fell asleep herself, for she had worked hardest of all!