For by this morning's post there has arrived a note from my aunt at Putney. Not for me. For my mistress!
The note is short enough. It is signed only "Anastasia Lovelace," and all it says is:
"Enclosed find notes to the amount of thirty pounds, being the sum advanced by you as salary to Miss Beatrice Lovelace. She will now return to Putney, bringing your receipt."
Both Miss Million and I have been gazing in amazement upon the rustling sheaf that my mistress took out of the registered envelope.
Where, in the name of all that's unaccountable, did Aunt Anastasia "raise" all that money, and in such a short time?
When could she ever have put her hands upon thirty pounds of English money?
Borrowed--pooh! Who has she to borrow from?
Steal--I'm the only member of her family who's ever been accused of that!
Surely--oh, surely, she can't have got the money from the Honourable Jim?
I can't think how else she can have got it, though.
I'm not going back to be Aunt Anastasia's niece any more!
I'm going on being Miss Million's maid; I shall go to this new place in Wales with her!
WELL, here we are again, as the clown says in the harlequinade.
Once more the lives of Miss Million and her maid have been set amidst scenes until now quite unfamiliar to us.
After the noise and bustle of the Strand about the hotel in July, the quiet, leafy depths of a remote Welsh valley. After the glaring London sunshine on the baked pavements, the soft Welsh rain that has been weeping ever since our arrival over the wooded hills and the tiny, stone-fenced fields, and the river that prattles over its slaty bed and swirls into deep, clear pools a stone's-throw below this furnished country house that Miss Million has taken for three months.
At present the house party consists of Miss Million, Miss Vi Vassity, Mrs. Flukes, the ventriloquist's wife, her baby and her monthly nurse. Mr. Jessop, who wrote all the business letters with regard to the taking of the house, is to come down later, I believe.
In the meantime we have the place to ourselves, also the staff left behind by the people of the house, consisting of one fat cook, two housemaids who speak soft Welsh-English, and a knives and boots boy who appears to say nothing at all but "Ur?" meaning "I beg your pardon?"