my perfectly cut black, taking in
every detail from the small hat to the delight-giving silk stockings and
suede shoes.

"Yes, for all her aristocratic relations they never done that for
her--why, you know what a pretty girl you said she was, Vi"--turning
upon London's Love, who nodded appreciatively.

"Well, you wouldn't ha' known her if you'd seen her in any old duds like
she used to have to wear when she was only 'my niece'"--here a
vindictive and quite good imitation of my Aunt Anastasia's voice.

"Now there's some shape in her"--this is good, from Million, who's
picked up everything about clothes from me!--"and who's she got to thank
for it? Me, and my good wages," concluded my mistress, with unction.
"Me, and my thirty pounds that I advanced her in the first week. She
can't go----"

"I don't want to!" I put in, but Miss Million grimaced me into silence.
She meant to have her say, her own, long-deferred say, out.

"She can't go without she pays up what's owing to me first," declared my
mistress triumphantly. "So what's she going to do?"

This certainly was a "poser" to poor Aunt Anastasia.

Full well I knew that she had not thirty pounds in the world that she
could produce at a moment's or even at a month's notice.

Her tiny income is so tied up that she cannot touch the capital. And I
know that, careful as she is, there is never more than twelve pounds
between herself and a pauper's grave, so to speak.

I saw her turn a little whiter where she stood. She darted at me a
glance of the deadliest reproach. I had brought her to this! To being
worsted by a little jumped-up maid-servant!

Million, I must say, made the most of the situation. "There y'are, you
see," she exulted. "Your niece has gone and spent all that money. And
you haven't got it to reimburse it. You can't pay up! Ar! Those that
give 'emselves the airs of being the Prince of Wales and all the Royal
Family, and there's nothing they can't do--they ought to make sure that
they have something to back it up with before they start!"

So true! So horribly true--poor Aunt Anastasia!

She said in her controlled voice: "The money shall certainly be paid. I
will write."

I saw her face a mask of worry, and then she turned away.

As she walked down the street towards the Strand again, I saw her sway
once, a little.

"Oh," I exclaimed involuntarily, "she ought not to walk. I don't believe
she's well. She ought not to be alone, perhaps----"

And I t