sir, and I don’t know where Miss Daisy’s maid may be.”

“Umph! well it seems to me that—” He stops and looks at the child.

“That I ain’t the properest person to look after Miss Daisy, I ’spose you mean—”

“Millie, you are growing impertinent.”

“Because I’m a poor girl that the mistress of this house took in out of kindness—”

“Millie; will you stop!” and he puts little Daisy down with a gesture of impatience.

“I’m trying to do my duty,” goes on the irate damsel; “and Mrs. Warburton, my mistress, has given me my orders, sir, consequently—”

“Oh! if Mrs. Warburton has issued such judicious orders,” and he takes up his mask and domino, “I retire from the field.”

“It’s time to stop them, Winnie,” says the lady in the garments of Sunlight, taking off her mask hastily. “Alan never could get on with a raw servant. I see war in Millie’s eyes.”

[69]Then she comes forward, mask in hand, and followed by the laughing Carmen.

[69]

“Alan, you are in difficulty, I see,” laughing, in spite of her attempt at gravity. “Millie, I fear, is not quite up to your standard of silent perfection.”

“May I ask, Mrs. Warburton, if she is your ideal of a companion for this child?”

The tone is faintly tinged with scorn and sternness, and Leslie Warburton’s eyes cease to smile as she replies, with dignity:

“She is my servant, Mr. Warburton. We will not discuss her merits in her presence. I will relieve you of any further trouble on her account.”

“Where, may I ask, is Daisy’s own maid?”

“In her room, with a headache that unfits her for duty. Come here, Daisy.”

Up to this moment Alan Warburton has kept the hand of the child clasped in his own. He now releases it with evident reluctance, and the little fairy bounds toward her stepmother.

“Mamma, how lovely you look!” reaching up her arms to caress the head 

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