“Thank you, Miss Star,” the woman answered, with a beaming face; “and you’d better believe it was a chance that I jumped at. I suppose I should have been slaving it for that ungrateful set now if I hadn’t come over to New York one day about three months ago, and met Mr. Rosevelt on Broadway, all by chance. He seemed glad to see me, and asked how I was getting on; and I was that discouraged with the way things were being managed, the cross words, complaints, and everything, that I told him I was sick and tired of it all, and meant to find another place just as soon as ever I could, though goodness knows I hadn’t an idea where that would be. Upon that he looked thoughtful, and, after a moment, said ‘he didn’t believe in hiring people away from their employers, but if I really meant to go away, he thought he knew of some one who would like just such a person for a housekeeper.’ I tell you I jumped at the chance, for ever since that young lord took himself off so quick, the madam has been so irritable that nothing would please her; and Mr. Rosevelt said when I had worked out my notice to come to him, and I’d find him any day at home at ten o’clock. I suppose he set that hour because he didn’t want you to know what was going on. I gave my notice the next day, worked out my two weeks, and came over to New York lighter of heart than I’d been for years. “When Mr. Rosevelt told me about what he’d been doing, and what he was going to do, and said he wanted me for his own housekeeper, my eyes stuck out so that I thought they’d never feel natural again; but if ever an old woman was happy, I was, to think I was going to serve you; and here I’ve been ever since, helping him fix up for you. “It’s like a beautiful story, Miss Star,” continued Mrs. Blunt, waxing sentimental, “to see you here among all these elegant things, for which you were just made, or I’m much mistaken; and when I see you coming out in all of these lovely clothes, nobody’ll be prouder than I.” “You are very good, Mrs. Blunt, to be so interested for me,” Star said, with a smile; “and if what you want is to see me ‘come out in these fine things,’ you will have your wish, for we shall have to take you to Newport with us, as I must have some one to attend me, and I cannot consent to take a stranger.” “That will be almost as good as to come out myself,” the woman said, with a chuckle of delight. Star’s wardrobe and pretty things were all ready at last, and Mr. Rosevelt, who had taken a strange interest in it, for a bachelor, was perfectly satisfied. He had made her elegant presents in the way of jewelry and laces, until she felt almost overwhelmed. “Diamonds!” she had exclaimed, her face flushing all over with delight, when, the day before they were to leave, he came into her sitting-room and laid a case in her lap, telling her to open it. He had already purchased her several other sets, but this was the crowning gift of all.