e my Aunt Anastasia thinking of it--with bitterness, with
envy.

It was she who ought to have taken Million to that office in Chancery
Lane.

But she--the mistress of the house--excused herself by saying it was her
morning for doing the silver.

We left her in the kitchen surrounded by what I am irreverent enough to
call the relics of our family's grandeur--the Queen Anne tea service,
the Early Georgian forks and spoons that have been worn and polished
fragile and thin. Indeed, one teaspoon is broken. Aunt Anastasia took to
her bed on the day of that accident. And the maid we had before Million
scoured my grandfather's Crimean medal so heartily that soon there would
have been nothing left to see on it. Since then my aunt has tended the
relics with her own hands.

We left her brooding darkly over the injustice that had brought fortune
to a wretched little maid-of-all-work and poverty to our family; we
hailed the big white motor-'bus at the top of the road by the
subscription library, and dashed up the steps to the front seat.

"There! Bit of all right, this, ain't it, Miss Beatrice!" gasped Million
ecstatically.

Stars of delight shone in each grey eye as she settled herself down on
the tilted seat. I thought that this change of expression was because
she had thought over her marvellous good fortune during the night, and
because she had begun to realise a little what it would all mean to her.
But I was quite wrong. Million, peering down over the side of the 'bus,
exclaimed gleefully, "Look at 'em! Look at 'em!"

"Look at what?"

"At all the girls down our road, there," explained Million, with a wave
of her tightly gloved hand.

At almost every house in Laburnum Grove a maid, in pink or lilac print,
with pail and floor-cloth, was giving the steps their matutinal wash.
One was polishing the knocker, the bell-handles, and the brass plate of
the doctor's abode.

"And here am I, as large as life, a-ridin' on a 'bus the first thing in
the morning!" enlarged Million, clenching her fists and sitting bolt
upright. "At half-past nine o'clock, if you please--first time I've ever
done such a thing! I've often wondered what it was like, top of a 'bus
on a fine summer's morning! I'll know now!"

"You won't ever have to know again," I laughed as I sat there beside
her. "You won't be going in any more 'buses or trams or tubes."

"Why ever not, miss?" asked Million, startled.

"Why! Because you'll have your own car to