He said, softly laughing: "Ah! You know well enough why I'm here. It's to be near you, child." What a good thing it is that I know exactly how to take this laughing, blarneying, incorrigible Irishman! What a blessing that I am not as poor little Miss Million was, who was utterly taken in by any blatantly insincere compliment that this young--well, I can say no worse than "this young Celt" chose to toss off! So I just said lightly, "Too flattered!" and hurried away to hand the callers their wraps and umbrellas in the hall. I'm glad I was in time to witness another rather priceless scene. Namely, the entrance of Miss Vi Vassity into the hall with the other ladies, and her recognition of the big young man in the laurel-green livery, with the handsome face so stolidly set under the peaked chauffeur's cap. "Jim!" exclaimed the comedienne, in a piercing treble. "Well, whatever next? If it isn't my pal Jim Burke!" "Just the sort of person one would expect her to have for a 'pal,' as she calls it," came in a not-too-soft aside from the owner of the car, then, haughtily, "Home, Burke." "Yes, Miss," said the new chauffeur, as respectfully as I could have said it myself, and he touched his peaked cap to his mistress with a kind of side-effect of "Cheery O, Vi," to the brilliant figure standing gasping with astonishment upon the top step. CHAPTER XXXIII MISS MILLION HAS AN IDEA! "WHATEVER in the wide world is young Jim up to now!" exclaimed London's Love, when at last the heavy hall door was closed upon the motoring ladies, the rectory party, and the two girls from across the valley. Miss Million's face was rather more serious than usual. "'Ere! I have an idea about that, Vi," she said. "And you, Smith, listen. It's just occurred to me." She glanced about the darkened hall with the stags' heads and the suit of armour. "You know I shall never be able to trust that Mr. Burke again. He let me down. Now what if he's lettin' all of us down? "F'rinstance, a young man like that, with heaps of friends with plenty of money, and always able to do as he likes up to now, what's he mean by suddenly taking on a situation as a common shoveer?" "Ar!" responded England's Premier Comedienne, who has often made the stalls rock with laughter over the concentrated meaning which she can infuse into that one monosyllable long-drawn-out. "Ar!" She turned upon me the wink that delights the gallery, then said dryly: "What's _your_ idea, Nellie?" "Why, I believe he's no more nor less than a common robber and burglar! A sort of Raffles, like in that play," declared Miss Million in a soft, excited whisper. "'Twouldn't surprise me a bit if he'd disguised himself like that, and gone into service with that frosty-face, stuck-up Miss Davis that was calling just because he wanted to get his footing in a wealthy house where there was heaps of valuables, and cetrer.