my mistress, becoming suddenly shrill and
flushed. "I give the girl sixty pounds a year, and take her about with
me to all my own friends, same as if she was my sister.

"Yes. You needn't look like that because I do. Ask her. The first time
in her life she's ever had a good time is now, since she's been working
for some one that does realise that a girl's got to have her bit of fun
and liberty same as everybody else, be she duchess or be she
lady's-maid!"

"She is a lady's-maid no longer," said my Aunt Anastasia, in a voice
that shook. The others looked fearfully uncomfortable, all except Miss
Vi Vassity, who seemed to be hanging with the keenest enjoyment upon
every syllable that fell from the lips of the two "opposing parties."

"My niece is no longer a lady's-maid," repeated Aunt Anastasia. "She
leaves your service here and now."

"Not without notice," said the stubborn Million, in a voice that brought
the whole of our inconvenient little Putney kitchen before my mental
gaze. Verily she had recovered from her bad attack of stage-fright in
court just before.

"A girl's got to give her month's notice or to give up a month's wages,"
said my Aunt Anastasia with a curling lip. "That is easily settled. My
niece is in no need of a month's wages from some one who is--charged
with common theft----"

"Why, she's 'charged' herself, as far as that goes!" Million gave back
quickly. "If I've taken that old ruby, my maid knows all about it, and
she's in it with me! You heard for yourself, Miss Lovelace, what that
old Rattenheimer said in there just now. It's her he suspects--your
niece! It's her he didn't want to let go, bail or no bail!"

What a wrangle!

It was a most inappropriate place for a wrangle, I know. But there they
still stood and wrangled in the open street outside the police-station,
ex-mistress and ex-maid, while passers-by stared curiously at them, and
I and the three young men stood by, wondering what in the world would be
said next.

"A month's wages, too!" repeated my young mistress, with the snorting
laugh with which she used to rout the butcher-boys of Putney.

"It's a fat lot more than a month's wages that's doo from your niece to
me, Miss Lovelace, and so I tell you! Two quarters' salary. That's what
I've advanced my maid, so's she could get herself the sort of rig-out
that she fancied. First time in her life the girl's been turned out like
a young lady."

Here Miss Million waved a hand towards