ir pretty cooks before now. Why shouldn't this nice
young man be Million's fate? He certainly did seem interested in her. It
would be a regular King-Cophetua-and-the-Beggar-Maid romance. Only,
owing to her riches, it would be Million's role to play Queen Cophetua
to this young man, who was too poor to go into the Army. So, feeling
quite thrilled by the prospect of looking on at this love story, I said:
"Would you like to send the brooch on to--to--er--to Miss Nellie Million
yourself?" You see, I thought if he knew where to take it, he would
probably go at once to the Hostelry for Cats of Independent Means and
see Million, and find out about her being now a young lady of
leisure--and--well, that might be the beginning of things!

So I smiled at him and added in my most friendly voice, "Would you like
me to give you the address?"

It was at this moment--this precise moment before he'd even had time
to answer--that Aunt Anastasia, back from her visit to her friend, came
up the tiny garden path behind him.

Yes, and this was the scene that met her gaze: her niece, her poor
brother's child, Lady Anastasia's great-granddaughter (who had already
been reproved for forgetting that she belonged to "OUR FAMILY"),
standing at the front door of her abode to repeat the offence for which
she had been taken to task--namely, "talking to one of the impossible
people who live about here!" The way in which Aunt Anastasia stalked
past the young man was more withering than the most annihilating glance
she could have given him.

To me she said, in a voice that matched her look: "Beatrice, come into
the house."

I went into the drawing-room.

She followed me.

Then the storm broke!

Of all the many "rows" I've had since I came to live with Aunt
Anastasia, this did, as Million would have said, "take the bun."

"Beatrice!" She threw my name at me as if it had been a glove thrown in
my face. "Beatrice! Little cause as I have to think well of you, I did
at least trust you!"

"You've no reason, Auntie," said I, holding myself as stiff as she did
(which was pretty ramroddy). "You've no reason not to trust me."

"What?" A bitter little laugh. "No sooner is my back turned, no sooner
have I left you alone in the house, than you betray my confidence. How
do I find you, after all that I said to you only the other evening on
this same subject? Standing there on the doorstep, just as if you'd been
poor Million, poor little gutter-bred ups