to cast anchor in her vicinity. You know what I mean.
Elizabeth can't _keep_ a young man. Perhaps she lacks the charm which
BARRIE describes as "a sort of a bloom on a woman." Or if she has any
of that bloom it must be swamped in the moist oleaginous atmosphere of
washing-up which seems to cling permanently about her.

"It's a new young man," said Elizabeth in answer to my question, "an'
'e's got work in a racin' stable, so that's 'ow 'e knows wot's goin'
to win. It'll be an outsider, 'e ses, which makes it all the better
for me."

"All the better for you?"

"Yes, 'm. You see, the more you puts on the more you wins."

Elizabeth may not have charm but she certainly has simplicity. "You
don't mean to say," I cried, a light breaking on me, "that you got
your next month's wages in advance just to put it all on a horse?"

"That I did," she replied complacently. "You see, my young man ses
that, if you put it on some time before'and, you get a better price,
so I thort I'd give it to 'im to put on at once. 'E promised 'e
wouldn't waste a minnit over it."

"But this is most foolish of you--to trust your money to an entire
stranger," I expostulated.

"'E isn't a stranger--'e's my young man," corrected Elizabeth, tossing
her head.

For the following few days she was radiant--but then anybody would be
who was certain of the winner of the Derby a week before the race.
In addition to this she had got a young man. Those brief periods
when Elizabeth's young men are in the incipient stages of paying her
attention are agreeable to everybody. Elizabeth, feeling no doubt in
her rough untutored way that God's in His heaven and all's right with
the world, sings at her work; she shows extraordinary activity when
going about her duties. She does unusual things like remembering to
polish the brasses every week--indeed you have only to step into the
hall and glance at the stair-rods to discover the exact stage of her
latest "affair." I remember that, when one ardent swain "in the flying
corpse" went to the length of offering her marriage before he flew
away, she cleaned the entire house down in her enthusiasm, and had
actually got to the cellars before he vanished out of her life.

The follower from the racing stable might aptly be described as "The
Man Who Never Came Back." He romped out of Elizabeth's existence on
the Sunday preceding the Derby.

"I waited for 'im four-an'-an-'arf 'ours, an' 'e didn't turn up," she
informed me ne