ok her head (in that awful crimsony straw hat that she will wear "for
best").

"You do remember that wish," I said. "You told me that you would so like
to marry a gentleman. Well, now, here you will have every chance of
meeting and marrying one!"

"Oh, Miss! But I'm reely--reely not the kind of girl that----"

"So you'll have to set to and make yourself into the kind of girl that
the kind of 'gentleman' you'd like would be wild to marry. You'll have
to----Well, to begin with," I said impressively, "you'll have to get a
very good maid."

"Do you mean a girl to do the work about the house, Miss?"

"No, I don't. You'll have a whole staff of people to do that for you," I
explained patiently. "I mean a personal maid, a lady's-maid. A person to
do your hair and to marcel-wave, and to manicure, and to massage you! A
person to take care of your beautiful clo----"

"Haven't got any beautiful clothes, Miss."

"You will have. Your maid will take care of that," I assured her.
"She'll go with you to all the best shops and tell you what to buy.
She'll see that you choose the right colours," I said, with a baleful
glance at the crimson floppy hat disfiguring Million's little dark head.
"She'll tell you how your things are to be made. She'll take care that
you look like any other young lady with a good deal of money to spend,
and some taste to spend it with. You don't want to look odd, Million, do
you, or to make ridiculous mistakes when you go about to places where
you'd meet----"

"Oh, Miss," said Million, blenching, "you know that if there is one
thing I can't stick it's havin' to think people may be making game of
me!"

"Well, the good maid would save you from that."

"I'd be afraid of her, then," protested Million.

I said: "No, you wouldn't. You've never been afraid of me."

"Ah," said Million, "but that's different. You aren't a lady's-maid----"

I said firmly a thing that made Million's jaw drop and her eyes nearly
pop out of her head. I said: "I want to be a lady's-maid. I want to come
to you as your maid--Miss Million's maid."

"Miss Bee--atrice! You're laughing."

"I'm perfectly serious," I said. "Here I am; I've left home, and I want
to earn my own living. This is the only way I can do it. I can pack. I
can mend. I can do hair. I have got 'The Sense of Clothes'--that is, I
should have," I amended, glancing down at my own perfectly awful serge
skirt, "if I had the chance of associating with anything worthy