"You don't know what confidence she has in me, what trust she puts in my word," said Norah, with a little natural pride. "If I tell her that you have been five years in one place, and that I have known you all the time, and that I'm certain that if your mistress were not abroad, she would give you a first-rate character, I'm sure—at least I'm almost sure that she'll take you."
"O Norah, you're like a comforting angel!" cried poor Milly; "if you only knew what a service you're going to do me! I've been almost in despair; half of my clothes are in pawn; I thought that I'd never succeed in getting a respectable place!"
"And this is such a good one!" cried Norah, quite excited with pleasure; "and how delightful it will be for us both to be always together! A companion whom I could love as a friend was the only thing wanting to make me perfectly happy, and there is no one on earth whom I should so gladly have as my Milly." Norah could hardly refrain from skipping for joy as she walked.
A thought, however, occurred to her mind, which somewhat damped her pleasure. "The only thing that makes me afraid that you may not get the place," she said, "is that I know that Mrs. Lowndes objects to married servants. I have heard her say myself that she will never engage one, the husbands give so much trouble."
"I do not even know where mine is," sighed Milly; "but I don't see why anything at all need be said about my being married."
Norah became very grave. "Would it be right to hide such a fact?" she said; "would it not be like deceiving my mistress?"
"Well, if you're going to let out a poor friend's secrets, and deprive her of her best chance of earning her bread in an honest way, you're not the girl that I took you for," said Milly, with bitterness.
There is no need to relate all the conversation that passed, nor to tell how Milly tried to persuade Norah, and how Norah tried to persuade herself, that to suppress the truth was no falsehood; that it was not in the least necessary that Mrs. Lowndes should ever know that her housemaid was married. Norah promised to do all that she could to procure the situation for Milly, and on reaching home at once went to her lady, and pleaded the cause of her friend.
"Five years in one place,—that looks well," observed Mrs. Lowndes; "there would at any rate be no harm in my seeing the girl. You have known her, you say, all your life. You may tell her to call this evening, and I will judge for myself. It's hard for good servants when they lose their places by a mistress going abroad."
Norah knew that Milly had not lost her place on account of Mrs. Lane's going abroad, but she was only too glad that her lady should think so. We may always suspect that we are in danger of striking against the iceberg of deceit, when we allow ourselves to wish something to be believed which we know to be quite untrue.