young lady like you has plenty of money there's a very poor choice of husbands!" [Pg 14] "There is, indeed," I sighed. [Pg 14] The little maid went on: "So I could have some sort of young man any day, Miss Beatrice. There's the postman here—very inclined to be friendly—not to mention the policeman. And the young man who used to come round to attend to the gas at the Orphanage when I was there. He writes to me still." "And do you write back to him?" "Picture postcards of Richmond Park. That's all he's ever had from me. He's not the sort of young man I'd like. You see, Miss, I've seen other sorts," said Million. "Where I was before I came here there was three sons of the house, and seein' so much of them gave me a sort of cri—terion, like. One was in the Navy. Oh, Miss, he was nice. Oh, the way he talked. It was better than 'The Flag Lieutenant.' It's a fact, I'd rather listen to his voice than any one's on the stage, d'you know. "The two others were at Oxford College. And oh, their lovely ties, and the jolly, laughing sort of ways they had, and how they used to open the door for their mother, and to sing in the bathroom of a morning. Well! I dunno what it was, quite. Different," said little Million vaguely, with her wistfully ambitious grey eyes straying out of the kitchen window again. "I did like it. And that's the sort of gentleman I'd like to marry." She turned to the oven again, and moved the gooseberry tart to the high shelf. I said, smiling at her: "Million, any 'gentleman' ought to be glad to marry you for your pastry alone." "Oh, lor', Miss, I'm not building on it," said Million [Pg 15] brightly. "A sergeant's daughter? A girl in service? Why, what toff would ever think of her? 'Tisn't as if I was on the stage, where it doesn't seem to matter what you've been. Or as if I was 'a lovely mill-hand,' like in those tales where they always marry the son of the owner of the works. So what's the good of me thinking? Not but what I make up dreams in my head, sometimes," admitted Million, "of what I'd do and say—if 'He' did and said!" [Pg 15] "All girls have those dreams, Million," I told her, "whether they're maids or mistresses." "Think so, Miss Beatrice?" said our little
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