money!"

"Gracious! I must say I should not have thought it," ejaculated Million,
with a note of the native shrewdness which I had suspected her of having
left behind in our Putney kitchen. "If you are poor"--here her bright
grey eyes travelled up her cousin's appearance from his quite
new-looking American shoes to his well-kept thick and glossy hair--"if
you are poor, all I can say is your looks don't pity you!"

"I need not point out to you that looks are a very poor proposition to
go by when you are starting in on summing up a person's status," said
the young American easily. "I may not look it, but money is a thing that
I am desperate for."

A sequence of emotions passed each other over Million's little face. As
I watched there were disbelief, impatience, helplessness, and the first
symptoms of yielding. She said: "Well, I don't know how it is that since
I have come into uncle's money I have been meeting people one after the
other who keep offering to show me what to do with it. You know, Smith,"
turning to me. "Haven't I had a fair bushel of begging letters from one
person and another who is in need of cash? Some of them was real enough
to draw tears from the eyes of a stone! Do you remember that one, Smith,
about the poor woman with the two babies, and the operation, and I don't
know what all? Well! She dried up quick since I suggested calling round
to see the babies! A fine take-in that was, I expect"--this to me, with
her eye on the well-set-up young man sitting before her. "Still"--this
was where the yielding began to come in--"you are my cousin, when all is
said. And so, I suppose, I have got to remember that blood is thicker
than water, and----"

She turned to me.

"Did you bring my cheque-book down, Smith, in my dressing-bag?"

"Yes, Miss, I did," I said gravely enough, though I was laughing
ruefully within myself.

"Well, just pop upstairs and get it for me," said Miss Million. Then,
again turning to her cousin, she said: "I can't say that I myself would
have cared particularly to start borrowing money off some one the first
time I set eyes on them, cousin or no cousin! Unusual sort of begging I
call it! Still, I daresay I could spare you" (here I saw her making a
rapid mental calculation) "five pounds, if that is of any good to you."

Here, at the very door, I stopped. I had been checked by the hearty
laugh of real boyish amusement that broke from Mr. Hiram P. Jessop at
her last words.

"Five