cheer up when Dimbie is down with typhoid and not expected to live."

"But you forget my book will only be for myself. I don't know enough to write one for other people. Dimbie says I am very ignorant."

"Oh, of course! And that after all is the best sort of book, the one you write for yourself. Some publisher will be saved endless care and worry. Your friends will be saved the necessity of turning down side streets when they see you coming along—they have barely four-and-six for one of the classics, or a book they really want, let alone yours."

I laughed.

"You are not polite."

"No, Marguerite; I love you, and I want to save you from your friends. But perhaps some day when it is finished, when your year is over, when you are too busy, like so many modern girls, to do anything but play golf and bridge, or there may be another interest in your life, you might let me have a look at it. A manuscript written out of sheer happiness might be interesting, though a trifle tiresome. There has been The Sorrows of Werther. Why not The Joys of Marguerite? Besides, your grammar and punctuation might require some correction."

"Nanty," I said, "you are making fun of me, and I'm very cold."

"Marguerite," she commanded, "give me another kiss, and then I'll go. I have enjoyed my afternoon with the little bride."

"I hear the whistle of Dimbie's train."

"What an astonishing thing!" she remarked sarcastically.

"I mean, won't you stay and see him?"

"No, I won't. I'm going home."

"John must have been interested in our conversation."

"John grows deafer each day," she said as she drove away.

I wandered down the lane to meet Dimbie, and presently he turned the corner.

CHAPTER III

ON AMELIA, FLUES, AND DRAIN-BAMBOOS

"Put down your worries," said Nanty, so I must perforce enter Amelia and the kitchen boiler. The boiler won't yield hot water, and Amelia says that isn't her fault, that she wasn't the plumber who put it there, and she can't be expected to get a flue-brush into a hole the size of a threepenny-bit.

When I said I thought she put it up the chimney she asked me what for.

"To clean the flue, of course," I retorted, a little irritably; and she replied with fine scorn that flues didn't grow up chimneys, but at the backs of fire-grates and other un-get-at-able places.

Ever since Amelia came to us her object appears to have been the sounding the depths of my ignorance, with the idea of putting us in our proper positions. I don't mean that she wishes to be the mistress exactly, and sit with Dimbie in the drawing-room while I peel potatoes in the back kitchen; but she wishes me to understand that she knows I am a silly sort of creature, and she will do the best she can for me, seeing that she is one of the "old-fashioned sort" who still take a kindly and benevolent interest in their master and mistress.

Not that Amelia is old-fashioned really, with flat caps and elastic-sided cloth boots, such as mother's servants wear. She is an entirely modern product. She knows how to do the cake-walk, and wears two-strapped patent slippers, with high Louis heels which turn over at a most dangerous angle, looking more like two leaning towers of Pisa than decorous, respectable "general's" heels. But she is old-fashioned in the sense that she appears to have our interests most tremendously at heart, is quite painfully economical, is forever scrubbing and cleaning, and calls me "mum" instead of "madam" when she isn't calling me "miss."

Just now she invited me to go and see how far she had got the brush up the flue. She was hurt because Dimbie had said he should have to get up early and see what he could do about the hot water. In fact, she had laughed derisively behind the roller-towel. She thinks no more of Dimbie's capabilities than of mine.

I went, and was much impressed by the length of the flue-brush and its pliability. Amelia had raked out the fire, and, with sleeves rolled back, showed me what she could do with flues. It was like being at a conjuring entertainment. The brush flashed about like lightning, got into impossible places, curved, wriggled, and once I thought that Amelia herself was about to disappear up the chimney. I clutched at her legs and brought her down. Her face was glowing and black in places.

"Now, mum," she panted, "if there's no hot water, is it my fault? If Amelia Cockles can't get no hot water, no livin' mortal can, includin' the master hisself. I'll show him to-night."

"Oh, don't, Amelia! Don't do it again! It's so difficult and dangerous, you might get stuck," I pleaded. "We'll have a new boiler."

"It's not the boiler," she pronounced; "it's where it's been put."

"Well, we'll have it moved. Where would you like it?"

She was guarded in her answer.

"I'm not sure as you can move boilers about like furniture. We must think it over."

She drew the brush from the flue, and I now saw it in its entire length.

"Wherever did you get it from?" I knew Dimbie and I hadn't bought it when we furnished.

"From the ironmonger's, of course."

"Was it expensive?" I asked carelessly. I wondered if it were a present from Amelia to us.

"Sixpence ha'penny. I sold some bottles and rubbish to the donkey-stone man."

"All that for sixpence halfpenny?" I ejaculated, ignoring the donkey-stone man, of whom I had never heard before.

Amelia eyed me a little pityingly.

"Would you care to see the drain-bamboo, mum? That cost fourpence."

"The drain-bamboo?"

"The thing we push down the drains to keep 'em clean and save bad smells."

"Yes, please."

Amelia produced it. It was tied up in coils, and as she cut the string it shot across the kitchen floor and narrowly escaped my ankles. I didn't like the drain-bamboo at all, it was a nasty, sinuous thing, and I asked Amelia to remove it at once.

"Have you any further contrivances, I mean unusual ones, concealed about the premises?" I inquired.

"Them are not unusual. I can't think where you was brought up if you haven't seen a flue-brush before, mum."

"I was born in Westmoreland first and then Dorking."

Amelia looked at me.

"I mean I was born in Westmoreland and then removed to Dorking." Amelia flurries me so at times I hardly know what I am saying. "I never went into the kitchen much," I added apologetically.

"P'r'aps your ma helped the general?"

"Oh, no, we hadn't a general."

"No servant?" in great astonishment.

"We had a servant, but not a general."

"A help?"

"No, we'd four servants. You see, my father suffers from gout, and he requires a lot——"

"Cook, kitchen-maid, housemaid, parlour-maid?" interrupted Amelia, ignoring my explanation.

"That was it."

Amelia put some coal on the fire, which she had relit, with a considerable amount of noise.

"No wonder you're hignorant, mum."

Amelia never leaves an "h" out, but in moments of stress occasionally puts one in. On the whole she speaks well for a Cockney born, and educated in the Mile End Road. Of course all her "a's" are "i's," but I find it difficult to transcribe them. "I tell Dimbie I know I shall pick up the vernacular as I am peculiarly imitative; and he says he hopes I won't, as it is not pretty."

"Beggin' your pardon for sayin' such a thing, but it's evidently not your fault, and p'r'aps you'll improve as time goes on. You've time to learn."

I tried to feel cheered at the hopes Amelia held out to me, and prepared to leave the kitchen, feeling a little annoyed with mother for neglecting my education so far as flue-brushes and drain-bamboos were concerned.

"How old are you, mum? You'll hexcuse me askin' you."

I hesitated. Were Amelia to know that I was two years her senior would she despise me more than ever?

"Never mind, mum. No ladies likes to