e, it'll be a bit strange for me at first,
having to have somebody fresh to do for me, after getting accustomed to
you. But I've got my clothes now; and I'm sort of used to things. I
shan't feel quite so lorst as I should at first. I shall be sorry to say
good-bye to you, o' course. You and me have always hit it, Smith,
some'ow, whether when you was the maid--or I was," concluded my young
mistress simply, looking up at me with genuine affection in her eyes.
"And I shall always remember you, wherever you are, and I hope you'll
come round and have a cup o' tea sometimes when you're Mrs. Brace, and I
hope you'll accept that two quarters' salary from me now as a wedding
present--not that I won't try and find you some sort of a little
resermenter when it comes to The Day! How soon 'ull him and you be
getting married, do you suppose?"

She was at the end of this long and kind-hearted speech before I could
find breath to interrupt.

I said hastily: "Oh, but now you're making the same mistake that I did
about you! I may not have to leave you at all, Miss Million. I don't
know if I shall ever be 'Mrs. Brace.' I don't know if I've made up my
mind to marry him--I told him I must think it over----"

"Better 'ook him while you can, dear. Young men are fearful ones for
chopping and changing, once you leave 'em to go off the coil, so ter
speak," Miss Million advised me in a friendly, motherly little tone.
"Not too much of your thinkin' it over. You're suited; well, you tell
him so!"

I said nothing. I didn't know what to say.

"Or," pursued Miss Million, "if you reely think he's the sort to think
more of you for 'keeping him guessing,' as Hiram calls it, well, I tell
you what. Me and you'll go down to my country house----"

"Where?" I asked, astounded. I had forgotten Miss Million's new plan of
campaign. "Where will we go?"

"Why, to this Plass or Plarse, or whatever they call it, in Wales, that
I'm thinking of takin'," said Miss Million, rustling the glossy leaves
of the _Country Life_ with the advertisement that had taken her fancy.
"We'll go there, Smith, and chance the ducks. If the perlice want us
again----"

She gave a little shiver.

"Well, they can come and fetch us from there, same as they did from the
'Refuge.' Any'ow, we'll have a bit of peace and quiet there first. I
always did like the idear of scenery, and there's lots of that there.
And we'll have down people to stay with us, so as to liven things up a
bit