ere," she said very
plaintively. "I'm sure I shall never be so happy anywhere else."

"Oh, yes: you will," said Pollyooly firmly. "You'll find the home ever
so nice."

Millicent shook her head doubtfully and said:

"And I shan't see anything of you and the Lump any more."

"Oh, yes: you will. You let us know when visiting day is--there's sure
to be a visiting day to a home; and we'll come and see you."

Millicent's face grew a little brighter.

The Honourable John Ruffin congratulated Pollyooly warmly on her
success; then he said:

"I trust you were not driven to use the weapon I suggested. Osterley's
cantankerousness didn't go so far as that?"

"Oh, well, sir," said Pollyooly, hesitating a little--"I--I did have to
pretend to cry."

The Honourable John Ruffin laughed gently.

"Poor Osterley!" he said.

The duke's letter plainly stirred the Bellingham Home to instant
activity, for a letter came for Pollyooly by the first post to say that
an official of the home would come for Millicent that very afternoon.

During the morning Millicent wept several times at the thought of
leaving the Lump; and her final farewell was tearful indeed. But
Pollyooly believed that her sadness would not last long: they had
decided that the empire-builder would have fair hair and a large and
flowing moustache.

After Millicent's departure their life settled down into its usual even
tenour. Pollyooly missed her; and doubtless the Lump also missed his
devoted and obedient slave, though he was of too placid a nature to
raise an outcry about his loss. She wrote to Pollyooly on the day
after her arrival at the home; and the letter made it clear that her
first impressions of it were pleasing.

It was on the fifth morning after her going that the Honourable John
Ruffin made the great announcement. It was his habit to chant in his
bath what Pollyooly believed to be poetry; and it is improbable that an
observant child of twelve, who had passed the seven standards at Muttle
Deeping school, could have been mistaken in a matter of that kind. At
any rate his chanting was rhythmical. The habit may have borne witness
to the goodness of his conscience, or it may not (it may merely have
been a by-product of an excellent digestion), but that morning it
seemed to her that he chanted more loudly and with a finer gusto than
usual.

She was not greatly surprised therefore, when she brought in his
carefully grilled bacon, at his saying