arning, and
waiting for my aunt's return. If Million had been here I could have
spent the afternoon with her in the kitchen. Million gone! I feel lost
without her.

Nothing else will happen to-day.

There's a ring at the bell. How unlike Aunt Anastasia to forget her key!
I must go....

(Later.)

I went. But it was not Aunt Anastatia's herring-slim figure that stood
on the doorstep which Million insisted on whitening for the last time
this morning. It was the tall, broad-shouldered, active and
manly-looking figure of the young man from next door.

CHAPTER VI

ANOTHER RUMPUS!

"OH!" I said--and felt myself blushing scarlet at the memory of all the
absurd little incidents that were between me and this stranger. The
incident of the garden-hose, and of my giving him a shower-bath with it
the other evening; and how Aunt Anastasia had poured added cold water
over him in a metaphorical manner of speaking. Then came the memory of
how we had met the next morning on the top of the 'bus when I was
chaperoning Million to her lawyer's. And of how the young man, chastened
by my aunt's best iced manner the night before, wouldn't even have said
"Good morning" unless I had addressed him. It was all very absurd, but
confusing.

He said, in that pleasant voice of his: "Good afternoon! I wish to
return some property of yours."

"Of mine?" I said, puzzled. I wondered whether a bit of lace of ours or
something of that sort had blown out of the window of No. 45 into the
garden of No. 44.

But the young man, putting his hand into his jacket pocket, took out and
held in the palm of his hand the "property." It was an oval silver
brooch, bearing in raised letters the name "Nellie." The young man said,
"I noticed it on the top of the 'bus just after you got off the other
morning; you must have dropped it----"

"Oh! Thank you so much," I began, taking the brooch. "It isn't mine, as
a matter of fact, but----"

"Oh," he said pleasantly, "you are not 'Nellie'?"

Then he hadn't heard Aunt Anastasia calling me in that very rasping
voice the other evening.

"No," I said, "'Nellie' is our maid; at least she was our maid."

"Oh, really?" he said, very interested.

He has a delightful face. I don't wonder Million said he was just what
she meant by "the sort of young gentleman" that she would like to marry.

Then a thought struck me.

Why not?

Men have married the