scullery-maid indulging in a vulgar flirtation with a policeman."

"I wasn't, I wasn't."

"I heard you giving him an address where he could write to you, doubtless?"

"Write to me? It was nothing of the kind," I took up, ready to stamp with rage. "It was—it was Million's address I was going to give to that young man."

"A likely story! Million, indeed!"

"You don't believe me? How dare you not, Aunt Anastasia? Look! Here's the proof!" And I held out to her the oval silver brooch with the raised "Nellie" upon it.

"Look! This is Million's brooch. She dropped it on the 'bus the other morning. And the young man from next door found it. And he came round to return it——"

"Yes. As soon as he had made certain, or had been assured, that you would be alone," declared my Aunt Anastasia, with unyielding accusation in every angle of her. "To return Million's brooch! Oh, Beatrice, you must think me very unsophisticated!" The thin lips curled. "This is an excuse even thinner than [Pg 40] that about the garden-hose the other evening. No doubt there have been others. How long have you been carrying on this underhand and odious flirtation with that unspeakable young cad?"

[Pg 40]

"Auntie!" I felt myself shaking all over with justifiable indignation. A flirtation? I? With that young man! Why, why—when I'd such honourable intentions of securing him, as her "gentleman" lover, for our newly made heiress, Million! I simply boiled over with righteous rage. I said, "You've no right to make such a suggestion."

"Beatrice! You forget to whom you are speaking."

"I don't. But I'm twenty-three, and I don't think you need go on treating me as if I were a schoolgirl, refusing to listen to what I have to say. Allowing me no liberty, no friends——"

"Friends! Is that why you make your own in this hole-and-corner fashion?"

"I shouldn't be to blame if I did!" I declared hotly. "You don't realise what my life is here with you. It's all very well for you to live in the past, pondering over the dear departed glories of our family. But at my age one doesn't care twopence 

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