Miss Million; "but who is this Mr. Burke? That is what we—I mean that is what Miss Million wants to know."

The sandy eyebrows of the chamber-maid rose to the top of her forehead as she replied: "Mr. Burke? I understood, Madam, that——" Then she stopped and began again: "Mr. Burke is staying in the hotel just now, Madam."

A sudden presentiment chilled me. I glanced from the small, ill-clad figure of the new heiress sitting at the table with her carnations, through the open door into her bedroom with the pyramidal new trunks which had attracted their full share of glances this morning!

[Pg 75] Then I looked back to the chamber-maid standing there so deferentially in front of the two worst-dressed people at the Cecil. And I said quickly: "Is he—is Mr. Burke the man who drove up in the four-in-hand this morning?"

[Pg 75]

"Yes, Madam. A black-and-yellow coach with four white horses; that would be Mr. Burke's party."

"Lor'!" broke for the fiftieth time this day from the lips of Million. "That young gentleman with all those grand people, and the trumpet" (this was the posthorn), "and what not? Him with the red rose in his buttonhole?" Million was as red as that rose in her flattered excitement, as she spoke. "Well, I never! Did you ever, Miss—er—Smith! Did you ever? Sending me in these beautiful flowers and all. Whatever made him think he knew me?"

"I can't say, Madam," took up the chamber-maid, "but I certainly understood from Mr. Burke that he knew your family—in the States, I think he said."

"Would that be me uncle that I got my money from?" murmured the artless Million to me.

I thought of the confab that I'd overheard in the central hall between the hotel porter and that loudly dressed young man who had raised his hat as we passed. It had been ascertained for him, then, that Miss Million and "The Sausage King" had something to do with each other! Awful young man! Million, looking visibly overcome, murmured: "Fancy dad's own brother having such classy friends out there! A Honourable! Doesn't that mean being relations with some duke or earl?"

[Pg 76] "Mr. Burke is the second son of Lord Ballyneck, an Irish peer, I believe, Madam," the chamber-maid informed us—or rather me. I wish all these people wouldn't turn to me always, ignoring the real head of affairs, Million. Never mind. Wait until I've got her into her new 

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